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The Committee on Publications of The 
Grolier Club certifies that this copy of 4 
Descriptive Catalogue of an Exhibition of 
Japanese Figure Prints from Moronobu to 
Toyokuni is one of an edition of three 
hundred copies, printed on Van Gelder 
Zonen paper, at The Gilliss Press. The 
presswork was completed in the month of 
April, 1924. 





6 na eres 28 ae 








JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 
FROM 
MORONOBU TO TOYOKUNI 














ReeeeoCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE 


OF AN EXHIBITION OF 


peer NE Sok 
Meee RE PRINTS 


FROM 
MORONOBU TO TOYOKUNI 


BY 


Poe soy Le DOU A 





NEW YORK 
Poe GROLIER CLUS 
1924 





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, by 





List OF PLATES 
PREFACE 


CATALOGUE 


CONTENTS 


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aignn'? 
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Ife tO uRaeAT ES 


PLATE “NUMBER PAGE 
FRONTISPIECE HARUNOBU No. 21. . . Title 
PLATE I Mitsunopu No. 3. . . 6 
PLATE II RIYOMASU ONG. * 4 9% 4 8 
PLATE III Ki YONOBU ONO Ae Fol ee Ae Yo 
PLATE Iv HOYONORU OMG. 13. 72%" S57 416 
PLATE V Tovonosu wNovet4a. 1 7S S418 
PLATE VI MASANOBU NG: 715 0°" T° 4°20 
PLATE VII Bivonine ts NGs10:..4 48 22 
PLATE VIII KIVOMITSU INDE 17° 4 Fe 24 
PLATE IX Kryomitsu. No. 18. . . ~ 26 
PLATE X Kiyomitsu No. 19. . . 28 
PLATE XI HARUNOBUY NO, 32047 2236) 40 
PLATE XII HARUSHIGE No. 36. . . 32 
PLATE XIII SHUNSHO Nov 42a eae a0 


PLATE XIV SHUNSHO NOY a4 ~ ae a 
1X 


PLATE 


PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 
PLATE 


PLATE 


XV 


XVI 


XVII 


XVIII 


XIX 


XX 


XXI 


XXII 


XXIII 


XXIV 


XXV 


XXVI 


XXVII 


XXVIII 


LIST OF PLATES 


CATALOGUE 
NUMBER 


SHUNSHO No. 49 


SHUNKO No. 54 . 
SHUNKO No. 55 
SHUNYEI No. 58 
SHUNYEI No. 59 
SHUNYEI No. 60 
SHUNYEI No. 61 


KorrusaAl No. 72 
SHIGEMASA No. 74 
KrvonaGA No. 77 
KrvonaGA No. 82 
Toyokuni’ No. 121 
Toyokuni’ No. 124 


Toyokuni’ No. 125 


FACING 
PAGE 


40 
42 
44 
46 
48 
50 
52 
54 
56 
58 
62 
84 
86 
88 


PREEACE 


By the middle of our seventeenth century, 
when the ancient feudal wars of Japan had become 
legends and the country had been long at peace, 
the prosperous middle classes of the capital and, 
to a certain extent, of the whole Empire had be- 
gun to demand self-expression in art. They were 
comparatively rich, they felt secure, they were 
light-hearted, bent upon pleasure. Poetry they 
had, and the minor arts; but painting, sculpture 
and the theatre were in the service of the Bud- 
dhist church or of the nobles—a condition not to 
be tolerated by a nation which, it may be claimed, 
was more keen in its esthetic appreciation than 
any other that had been in the world since Athens 
fell—when once the great body of the people 
had become rich enough, settled enough to get 
what it wanted. From the earlier marionette 
shows a popular theatre was developed that be- 
came the national passion; a popular school of 
painting sprang into being, gathering to itself 
and expanding certain phases of earlier Japanese 
art; and this school, disregarding the canons of 
classical painting, unmindful of the Buddhist 

xi 


PREFACE 


spiritualities, or treating them with scant rever- 
erence, concerned itself solely with the glamor 
of daily existence, the joy of life, the beauty of 
the present world. The chosen medium of this 
school was the color print. Prints were made 
cheaply and sold by thousands. They served 
the purpose of our Sunday Supplements. They 
depicted the popular actors in favorite réles, the 
famous courtesans,—a class of women who appear 
to have been often of exquisite cultivation, much 
like the Greek hetzerz. They were used as fash- 
ion plates; the country gentlemen who were 
obliged by law to come up to the capital once a 
year, the merchants who came in from outlying 
districts, took them home to show the people in 
their native villages the styles of the hour, the 
gay life of the city. They were the “ Vogue” and 
“Theatre Magazine” of their time; but they were 
as well marvels of line and color, marvels of tech- 
nical achievement, so filled with a sense of the 
joy and beauty of life, preserving with such 
passionate intensity, such sensitive appreciation 
each ephemeral loveliness, that they have won a 
place apart in the art of the world and in the af- 
fections of those who are familiar with them. 

It is not for a catalogue to discuss the influence 
of Japanese prints on modern European painting, 
or to point out wherein they resemble, or differ 
from, the earlier art of the West. It is necessary, 
however, to outline briefly, as they are reached, 
the stages of technical development. The de- 


X11 


PREFACE 


tails of the process have been described in many 
books. 

Whenever a reproduction of the actual print 
exhibited has been published, the reference is 
given. Whenever other impressions of the prints 
shown have been reproduced, the effort has been 
made to refer to the most important or most 
easily accessible book or catalogue in which the 
subject appears—the series of Vignier-Inada Cat- 
alogues, published in Paris, usually being taken 
as the standard. When there is no reference to 
a reproduction of a print or subject, it may be in- 
ferred that none has been found; and in selecting, 
from among the two hundred and fifty prints ex- 
hibited by the Grolier Club, forty-two for repro- 
duction in these catalogues, the choice has been 
confined to those subjects which,have not been 
reproduced hitherto, or have been reproduced 
only in very obscure places. The negatives have 
not been retouched, so that the reproductions 
show the actual qualities of impression and condi- 
tion of the prints. Sizes are given in inches. 


No one could write about Japanese Prints with- 
out being under direct and constant obligation to 
Mr. Frederick W. Gookin, who has made a long 
and special study of the subject—particularly of 
the actor prints. The compiler of this catalogue 
has had the advantage not only of Mr. Gookin’s 
published writings but of years of friendly cor- 
respondence and conversation as well. 


Xiil 


PREFACE 


To another friend, Mr. Kihachiro Matsuki of 
Kamakura, student of prints, lover and preserver 
of the poetry and legend of his land, almost equal 
obligation should be acknowledged. During hap- 
py hours passed with Mr. Matsuki the writer 
gained some insight into the meaning of prints, 
some knowledge of the quaint lore and romantic 
story that form their obvious background to a 
Japanese. 

To these names it is a pleasure to add that of 
Mr. Shigeyoshi Obata, the distinguished trans- 
lator of Li Po, who has given kind assistance in 
connection with the interpretation of poems. 

Li 


XIV 


CATALOGUE 


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INK-PRINTS 


All Japanese prints are from wood blocks, and 
in the earlier ones exhibited, which are known as 
sumi-ye, or ink prints, one block alone was used— 
black outlines being printed on white paper to 
make the picture. Later, in the so-called “ Bro- 
cade Pictures” of many colors, a separate block 
was cut for each color, so that the black outline 
impression from what had come to be known as the 
key block, sometimes received impressions from 
more than twenty-five other blocks before the 
finished print was obtained. 


MORONOBU (Ca. 1625-1695) 


A samurai and his sweetheart seated. Another 
woman at the right, at the left a burning candle 
in a tall stand. On the floor is a writing box 
with brushes, and beside it is an erotic poem by 
Narihira,.a celebrity of the 9th Century, who is 
as famous for his intrigues as for his verses. This 
print is an excellent example of Moronobu’s 
power, but it does not show the equally charac- 
teristic archness and humor which are apparent 
in many of his faces—particularly in those of the 


3 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Kyoto set. It is unsigned, as is usual with 
Moronobu, and undated; but as the pattern of 
the woman’s obi, or sash, and the style of hair 
arrangement reappear in the prints by the same 
artist that are reproduced in the Vignier-Inada 
Catalogue, Vol. I, No. 10, and the catalogue of the 
Field Collection, No. 12, it is likely that the three 
prints were made in the same year—perhaps 
about 1680. Fashions changed quickly in Yedo 
in those gay days and it was de rigeur for the 
courtesans, actors, and prosperous, pleasure-loy- 
ing people of the middle class, who are shown 
in the prints, to follow them closely. The uni- 
dentified mon, or crest, of the lover appears in 
another print by Moronobu, which is reproduced 
in the French edition of Von Seidlitz, Plate 5. 
The print exhibited is reproduced in “Asia,” 
August, 1923; Kurth reproduces part of the sub- 
ject, spoiling the composition, in his “ Japanische 
Holzschnitt,” Plate 6. 

Size 102 x 153. 


OKUMURA MASANOBU (Ca. 1685-1768) 


An example of Japanese wit, showing with what 
irreverent levity the public for whom prints were 
designed treated the solemn legends of old China. 
Incidentally it gives an excellent illustration of 
how much is lost by those who consider merely 
the decorative value of Japanese prints—their 
composition, line, and color—without attempting 
to discover the meaning. It is the over-tones 


4 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


that we miss, just as a Japanese, who was not 
sufficiently conversant with Western thought, 
might see only line in a Daumier cartoon or a 
Descent from the Cross. The difficulty, how- 
ever, of finding the ultimate, central meaning 
or even the connotations of almost any work of 
Japanese or Chinese art is immense, if not insu- 
perable, for everything is stated indirectly, by 
implication or through hidden meanings; the ar- 
tist being able to rely upon the quickness of per- 
ception of the spectator and his accumulation of 
traditional learning. Fortunately the allusion in 
this print is clear. Generations of Japanese 
children had been nursed on the typically Chinese 
story of a noble hermit sage whose solitary con- 
templation had been interrupted by a verbal 
message asking him to come back into the world 
of men and be-Emperor. When the messenger 
had departed, the incorruptible one was found by 
his servant seated beside a waterfall busily wash- 
ing from his ears the taint of what they had heard; 
and the tale of worldly temptation so shocked 
the servant that he led back an ox he had been 
about to water, refusing to let the beast drink of 
the polluted stream. It is a Chinese Sunday 
School story with an irreprochable Roman moral, 
but what do the Japanese—the Greeks of Asia— 
do with it? The print shows a gentleman, who is 
not a hermit, washing his ear, while a somewhat 
gay lady leads away her pet cat. Behind them, 
for sufficient caption, is depicted a classical paint- 


y) 


QW 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


ing of a waterfall drawn in the Chinese manner. 
Reproduced, Catalogue of Field Collection, No. 
37: 
The print is signed and sealed by Okumura Ma- 
sanobu, and was published by Kikuya about 1715. 
Size 112 x 163. 


HASEGAWA MITSUNOBU (worked from 
about 1720 to about 1755) 


Two women in a room opening on a verandah. 
One, with toilet articles beside her, is arranging 
her hair before a low mirror, the other stands 
holding a box of face powder. 
The massiveness of design and the bold brush 
strokes of Moronobu have yielded to the stately 
grace of such figures as these. In the work of the 
contemporary Sukenobu the grace has become 
sweetness and the stateliness is gone. 
Hasegawa Mitsunobu was a painter whose few 
prints are excessively rare. He appears to have 
been born in Osaka and to have come later to 
Yedo. Books are recorded that were illustrated 
by him and were published from 1724 to 1754. 
He sometimes signed his work Braioken Eishun, 
or Shosuiken or Ryusuiken. The print exhibited 
probably appeared before 1735 and is the seventh 
sheet of a set of nine, four of which are in New 
York, the last being signed Ryusuiken Hasegawa 
Mitsunobu. No print by this artist appears to 
have been previously reproduced. 
Size 103 X 15. (Plate 1). 

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MITSUNOBU NO. 3 


PLATE I 





JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


PRINTS COLORED BY HAND 


Almost from the beginning some impressions of 
the black and white ink-prints had been colored 
by hand; but as the art of printing developed and 
prints became popular, hand coloring became the 
rule rather than the exception, and was done 
much more carefully, either by the artist himself 
or under his direction. At first a dull orange, 
called fan, was the only pigment applied, but 
soon other colors were added, the total effect fre- 
quently being heightened by the use of gold 
powder and black lacquer. 


KIYOMASU (?-1764) 

Monaka reading. A Tan-ye, or print colored by 
hand with dull orange. A greenish yellow has 
been used in other parts of the design. 

Monaka, a famous public beauty of her time, 
whose name and address are given, stands in her 
gorgeous robes reading a poem, only the essential 
part of which is visible to us: 


Life is full of trouble, but the plum- 
blossoms by the window 


The poem, and indeed the whole print, is signifi- 
cant of the extent to which the gentle aesthet- 
icism and delicate appreciation of nature that 
had come through the influence of Zen Buddhism 
had influenced even the lower classes. The 
nobles had paintings done in Chinese ink, in 


7 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


which the spiritual significance of the subject— 
quality in it that was eternal—was indicated by a 
few brush-strokes; the people had prints like 
this. 

The tying of the ob1, or sash, in front indicates 
the station of the wearer, but these women were 
creatures of exquisite culture, trained in all the 
amenities of life; and while elopement with one 
of them was apt to lead to a double suicide, they 
were not looked down upon as they have been at 
other times and in other lands. Comparison with 
Athens is again inevitable. 

There is a peculiar stateliness about this design, 
a bigness in a small space, that is somewhat 
unusual. The print was published by Yamakichi 
probably about 1715, and is attributed with 
considerable confidence to the young Kiyomasu, 
though certain critics have tended to consider it 
the work of Moroshige, or the first Kiyonobu, or 
some member of the Kwaigetsudo group. It has 
been reproduced in color as the frontispiece of 
the 1922 edition of “The Book of Tea.” 

Size 124 x6. (Plate I). 


KONDO KIYOHARU (worked Ca. 1715-1735) 


A Buddhist nun, or possibly the actor Sanjo 
Kantaro in the réle of a Buddhist nun, carrying 
a box. The large shade hat is sprinkled with 
gold powder. 

This print was probably issued about 1718. It 
is unsigned but is attributed to Kondo Kiyo- 


8 





PLATE II KIYOMASU NO. 4 





JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


haru because of certain characteristics of drawing 
which seem to distinguish his work from that 
of the equally rare artist, Kondo Katsunobu, to 
whom otherwise the attribution might be made. 
Formerly in the Jaekel Collection, this print was 
reproduced in color by Miinsterberg, Vol. III, 
p. 318. 

Size 12} x 53. 


KIYONOBU First (1664-17209) 


The actor, Ichikawa Monnosuke the first, in the 
role of an exhibitor of trained monkeys. 

The names of actors went on from generation to 
generation, being given to adopted sons when 
there were no descendants capable of bearing 
them with sufficient distinction. In some cases 
the new bearer of a name that had lapsed was 
chosen by vote of his peers, and actors changed 
their names and identifying mon, or crests, with 
bewildering frequency. Sometimes it is only by 
the surprisingly exact portraiture that came into 
vogue with the actor prints of a slightly later 
date that it is possible to tell which generation is 
depicted. 

This print, which is unusually fine in line and 
color, as well as in condition, must have appeared 
between 1719, when the first Monnosuke adopted 
the mon shown, and 1729 when he, as well as the 
artist, died. There is no dispute as to the attri- 
bution. . 

In this Catalogue the attempt has not always 


9 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


been made to distinguish between different gen- 
erations of actors of the same name, the Exhibi- 
tion being intended primarily for those who are 
not specialists in the subject. If these notes 
help some to understand and appreciate, they 
will have served their sole purpose. The human 
background of Japanese prints should be of in- 
terest to all, the erudite historical problems 
connected with them are for specialists alone. 
Print reproduced, “Asia,’’ August, 1923. 
Subject reproduced in color, Plate No. 16 of the 
unfinished work by Barboutau (1914) which was 
interrupted by his death. 

Size 13} X 64. 


7 KIYONOBU First 


The actor Tatsuoka Hisagiku, as a woman carry- 
ing on a small stand the conventional decoration 
for a wedding ceremony, which is made up of the 
four symbols of longevity—the pine, the peach, 
the crane, the tortoise. 

On account of various scandals which culminated 
in a celebrated murder, it became the law that 
no woman should appear on the stage. In prints, 
the actors are always men; the illusion, however, 
is perfect, as, except for the artificial voice to 
which one grows quickly accustomed, it is perfect 
in the Japanese theatre of to-day. When a boy 
was born in an actor’s family, his parents decided 
quickly whether he should play male or female 
parts, and his training was in accordance with 


10 





KIYONOBU NO. 7 


PLATE. {II 





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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


their decision. Everything in women’s rdles is 
played differently, even to all the gestures; and 
actors trained from childhood for these parts 
achieve an astonishing grace of carefully thought 
out rhythmic motion. 

Print reproduced in the Catalogue of the Kinbei 
Murata Sale of September, 1918. 

Signed Torii Kiyonobu and published by Mura- 
taya, probably about the same date as the pre- 
ceding number. 

Size 12 x 6. (Plate III). 


8 SHIGENAGA (1697-1756) 


The actor Arashi Wakano, as a woman under an 
umbrella walking in the snow and turning to look 
at the blossoms on a gnarled tree. In Japan, 
blossoms and snow actually are seen together, 
the rose camelias are bright under the first soft 
snow of autumn, and the blooms come on the 
plum trees before winter has begun to turn to- 
ward spring. Thecurious decoration of the outer 
_ kimono is formed of miniature portraits of some 
of the Thirty-six Famous Poets, of whom Nari- 
hira (see note on Number 1.) was one. These 
thirty-six poets were a favorite subject of art, 
their names and their verses being familiar to all. 
Reproduced as No. 25 in the Catalogue of the 
Frederick May Collection. 
The print is signed by Shigenaga and was pub- 
lished by Igaya about 1725. 
Size 13% x 64. 
11 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


9 OKUMURA MASANOBU 


A man and a woman in a room watching a youth 
who is about to write. Note the position of the 
brush and hand, so different from the Occidental 
one. Painting, which was closely akin to the 
equally prized art of calligraphy, was done in the 
same manner. In the foreground area writing box 
with its slab of black Chinese ink, and a smoking 
box with a pipe that would hold the usual three 
puffs of tobacco which are so dear to the Japanese. 
Opium smoking was never practised in Japan. 
Behind the group of people are a saké pot, a cup 
on a stand, and a tray of food with chopsticks. 
The rear wall is decorated with a lovely snow land- 
scape; and on the left is a poem of the short sev- 
enteen-syllable form, written by the artist, which 
refers to a particularly dainty small plum that is 
nicknamed, by way of humor, after those gigantic 
and grotesque guardians of the temple gates— 
called Nio, and really is a love poem in disguise. 
The allusions in the print are not wholly clear. 
The subject is reproduced in the V. I. Catalogue, 
Vol. I., No. 141, but from an impression that 
lacks the signature and seal. 
Signed and sealed by Masanobu. 
Date probably a little later than that of Number 
2 by the same artist. 
Size 9% x 14} 

10 TOSHINOBU (worked Ca. 1725-1742) 


A dandy of more than questionable morals out 
12 


I! 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


walking on a cold day. His umbrella, which 
bears the characters wishing long life, is sprinkled 
with gold and he is mounted on geta, or pattens, 
high enough to protect him from any depth of mud 
or slush. The heavy outer coat that he wears is 
decorated with the mon of various popular actors. 
The similarity in the names of many of the print 
designers is because a pupil was given, as a sort of 
diploma, when he became proficient enough, the 
right to adopt a part of his master’s studio name. 
The man who called himself, as an artist, Mas- 
anobu was the teacher as well as the father of 
Toshinobu. This rule has many notable excep- 
tions, for there are similarities of sound that have 
nothing to do with the studio in which an artist 
received his training. 

Toshinobu appears to have died young; while his 
father, Masanobu, lived on to a ripe old age, pro- 
ducing many designs that were printed in two 
colors, and even surviving to the beginning of the 
polychrome period. 

This print probably appeared about 1725, and 
probably is an early Toshinobu showing the in- 
fluence of his father. It was formerly in the 
Jaekel Collection and was reproduced in color by 
Miinsterberg, Vol. III, p. 319, who attributed it 
to Masanobu. 

Size 124 x 6. 


KI YOMASU 
A later print than Number 4, by the same artist. 


13 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Sanjo Kantaro, as a woman arranging her hair 
before a lacquer mirror. He is in the réle of 
Yao-ya O Shichi, a grocer’s daughter, who, when 
her father’s house burned down, was sent to stay 
in a temple where she promptly fell in love with 
a young student. On her return home she set 
fire to the recently completed new house in the 
hope of being sent back to her lover; but was 
unfortunate enough to choose a windy day so 
that half the town burned. There was a prompt 
investigation and the lady was executed—to be- 
come thereafter a heroine of romance. 

The original creator of the part made such a 
success in it that in revivals of the play his mon— 
a sealed letter—was used by the leading actor 
with his own, and eventually came to be an indi- 
cation of the rdle. 

The decorations on the robe represent wooden 
clappers strung together to be hung in the wind 
and frighten birds from the rice-fields; they are 
the Japanese equivalent of our scare-crows. 
This print is known to be by Kiyomasu because 
the impression in the Vever Collection, which is 
reproduced by Von Seidlitz, French Edition, 
Plate 10, bears his signature. 

Date about 1725. 

Size 122 x 53. 


12 TOYONOBU (1711-1785) 


The two end sheets of a triptych representing the 
“Beauties of the Three Cities,” Kyoto, Osaka, 


14 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


and Yedo (now called Tokyo). The color effect 
is greatly heightened by the use of lacquer and 
gold powder. 

These prints were published by Maruya and are 
signed Nishimura Magosaburo, a signature which 
has recently been discovered to be an early one of 
the great Toyonobu, who also signed in his youth 
Shigenobu; the two earlier signatures being found 
on prints that appeared between 1730 and 1743. 
The triptych of which these are a part must have 
been printed nearer to the earlier than to the 
later of the dates given. 

Size of each sheet 124 x 6. 


EXPERIMENTS IN COLOR 
PRINTING 


Shortly after 1740, it was discovered that by 
the use of a simple device to insure perfect regis- 
ter, two color blocks could be added to the black- 
outline keyblock, the sheet on which the finished 
print was to appear being pressed on each of these 
in turn. These two-color prints are called Bent- 
ye because beni—a somewhat evanescent rose— 
always was used, the other color being at first 
green and afterwards either green or blue. A 
little later a third block was added, but was not 
always used; and, as experiments in over-printing 
were made, the range of color was greatly in- 
creased, before the final development of full 
polychrome printing, about 1764 and 1765. 


15 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


13 TOYONOBU 


An example of the two-color prints of an artist 
whose earlier hand-colored work is shown as 
Number 12. 

This print was issued for the revival of another 
famous play, “The Revenge of the Soga Broth- 
ers,’ a story of vendetta coming down from the 
period of the twelfth century feudal wars, that 
holds its place on the stage to-day. 

Japan is the only important nation in the present 
world whose legendary and heroic past lives in 
the hearts of the people, as familiar to them as 
were the legends of Troy and Thebes to the audi- 
ences for whom /Eschylus and Sophocles wrote. 
It is as though the stories of King Arthur, the 
death of Roland, the Crusades, the Wars of the 
Roses, were so vital a part of our imaginative 
outlook that we would pack the theatres, year 
after year, to see them produced. 

The Soga brothers accomplished their revenge 
and died tragically, both in early youth. The 
poem on the print reads: “Youthful Brothers, 
comparable only to young maples in early leaf.”’ 
For the way to identify the Soga brothers in 
prints see note under Number 48. The actors 
here are Onoe Kikiyord (right) as Soga no 
Gord, and Ichimura Kamiz6 as Soga no Juro. 
The drama was “ Nannakura Wakayagi Soga, and 
was performed at the Ichimura Theatre, Yedo, in 
the first month of Eukyé Isire (February, 1742). 


16 


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TOYONOBU NO. 13 


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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Signed by Toyonobu and published by Maruko 
in 1744. 
Size 15 x 11%. (Plate IV). 


14 TOYONOBU 


Nakamura Kiyozo as a girl called Matsuyama 
(Pine mountain), and Ichimura Kamezo as an 
attendant holding her umbrella. At least the 
lower mon on the right sleeve of Kiyoz6 appears 
to have been put in by a plug in the block, per- 
haps to replace that of an actor who died during 
the run of the play. 

Subject reproduced, ‘‘Estampes appartenant aun 
Amateur de |’Etranger.”’ Paris, Hotel Drouot, 
June 14, 1909, No. 20. 

Compare Moslé Catalogue, No. 1878. 

Signed and sealed by Toyonobu and published by 
Urokogataya probably between 1748 and 1750. 
Size 162 x 12. (Plate V). 


MASANOBU 


Numbers 2 and 9 in this exhibition show earlier 
work of the long-lived Masanobu, the first in 
black and white only, and the second hand-col- 
ored. Neither one compares in beauty of line 
with this two-color print, and the soft fading by 
time of its characteristic rose and green has given 
it an added charm all its own. 

The print was issued in 1750 for another revival 
of the play described under Number 11, and 
shows the fair incendiary strolling with her lover, 
while music is the food of love. The instrument 


17 


16 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


in her hand is a samisen, or Japanese banjo, and 
his a kokyu, or three-stringed fiddle. Note the 
sealed letter—a reminder once again of the ori- 
ginal creator of the rdle. 

The poem on the print reads: 


Here in Sacred Ise, where the cherrv is always 
in bloom, we find our hill of happy meeting. 


Signed and sealed by Masanobu. 
Size 16 x 114. (Plate VI). 


KIYOHIRO (worked Ca. 1745-1758) 


Segawa Kikunojé I and II were the most famous 
and most exquisitely depicted of all actors of 
women’s roles. Each was the popular idol of 
his time, and the head—at least of Kikunojé I, 
must have been turned by it, for here beside his 
portrait he writes a poem, signed with his per- 
sonal name—Roko, in which he says: “As a 
woman he has as many admirers as the flowers” 
—the admiration of flowers being, of course, a 
universal characteristic of the Japanese. Doubt- 
less the statement was true; but in our Western 
world of newspapers and press agents, actors can 
blush with surprise when they hear such things 
said by others. Kikunoj6’s mon—a sheaf of 
cotton—is the chief decoration of his costume; 
there can be no mistake about who he is. The 
composition is of extreme grace and one can im- 
agine with what consummate art an actor who 
wore his clothes so well and had such clothes to 


18 


XN 
i Wegyneetttl 





PLATE V TOYONOBU NO. 14 





18 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


wear, would move about the stage, managing the 
undulating line of the draperies. 

Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of 
September, 1917, No. 22. 

Signed and sealed by Kiyohiro and published by 
Yamamoto, about 1748. 

Size 15x 7. (Plate VII). 


KIYOMATSU (1735-1785) 


The actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu holding a long 
pipe and standing beside a bench on which is 
his smoking box. 

The actor is in the rdéle of one of the Soga brothers 
whose tragic story is outlined in the note on 
Number 13. The way to recognize the Soga 
brothers in prints is described under Number 48. 
This one is Soga no Gord. - 

Signed Torii Kiyomitsu. 

Size 128 x 53. (Plate VIII). 


This and the two following prints by Kiyomitsu 
may be dated roughly between 1760 and 1770. 
Prints in two and three colors continued to be 
made for some years after the invention of 
polychrome printing. 

KIYOMITSU 


The actor Adzuma Tozo as a woman under a 
maple, carrying bird cages. 

Signed by Kiyomitsu and published by Nishi- 
mura. | 
Size 12% x 5%. (Plate IX). 


19 


19 


20 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


KIYOMITSU 


The actor Yamashita Kinsaku as a woman with 
blossoms in her hair, carrying a blossoming 
branch, from which is suspended a foot-ball. 
Foot-ball in Japan was a much more stately 
game than it is with us and was played in flowing 
garments of brocade. 

Signed by Kiyomitsu. 

Size 124 x 54. (Plate X). 


KIYOMITSU, KIYOTSUNE (worked Ca. 1756- 
1775) and HARUNOBU (born about 1730, died 
1770) 

“The Beauties of Three Cities,’ done by three 
different artists. (For the subject compare No. 
12.) Behind the three girls are shown the three 
flowers that are associated with the cities, and 
each wears the mon of a favorite actor. Above 
each is a love poem. 

This triptych must have appeared about the 
time of the perfecting of polychrome printing by 
Harunobu, the great name of the period between 
1764 and the date of his untimely death; but as 
two of its three sheets are by artists of the pre- 
ceding period, the last of the “Primitives,” it 
serves very well to mark the transition between 
the two- and three-color prints and the real. 
“Brocade Pictures,” besides being in itself a 
thing of peculiar loveliness. 

Print reproduced as No. 83 of the F. W. Hunter 


20 


LER SE 


Aue hi — 





5 


I 


MASANOBU NO. 


PLATE VI 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Catalogue, with the sheets arranged in the wrong 
order. 

Signed by the three artists. 

Date about 1765. 

Size 122 x 163. 


The period of the “Primitives” is ended. We 
pass now to the work of artists each of whom will 
be considered by himself. 


HARUNOBU (born about 1730, died 1770) 


Harunobu, who disputes with three very dif- 
ferent artists, Kiyonaga, Sharaku, and Utamaro, 
the claim to first rank among the designers of 
figure prints of the popular school, unfortunately 
died young. His work before 1764 is little known 
and of little distinction, but between that date 
and his death in 1770 he produced an immense 
number of designs that are most beautiful in 
themselves and, because of a peculiar quality 
that is in them, have endeared him to the heart 
of the world. He is the artist of young girlhood, 
the poet of youth. His figures, untouched by 
sorrow, move through an earthly paradise, a 
fairyland of loveliness, the world that might be 
rather than the world that is. He has caught 
and rendered for us the evanescent charm of 
youth; he has sought to preserve, with the fresh- 
ness of the morning on it, that fleeting moment 
between the opening of the bud and the fall of 


21 


21 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


the first petal, in which alone beauty is perfect, 
unalloyed. Harunobu did not have the stateli- 
ness of Kiyonaga, the sardonic power of Sharaku, 
nor the range of Utamaro; he turned away from 
the theatre, was, in the main, unmindful of the 
demt-monde; what he did have, he had supremely 
—his vision of the spring-time of life and love. 


All of the fifteen prints by Harunobu in this 
Exhibition can be dated between 1764 and 1770; 
most of them were done before 1767. They have 
been selected with sorrow and misgiving from 
about seventy available examples, and, fortu- 
nately, it is not necessary to discuss in connection 
with them the vexed, irrelevant questions of schol- 
arship. In the earlier ones the color-scheme is 
more simple, with a delicate yellow predomi- 
nating. 


HARUNOBU 


Young lovers playing a flute. Behind them is 
a screen decorated with pine branches. The 
bamboo leaves in the decoration of the girl’s 
gown are so arranged as to give the numerals of 
the Japanese year equivalent to our 1765. This 
year was the nine hundredth anniversary of the 
entrance of Michizane—a statesman, scholar and 
artist of old—to the court of the Emperor, and a 
number of so-called calendar prints were de- 
signed toward the close of 1764 and issued at the 
beginning of the New Year as part of the popular 


22 





PLATE VII KIYOHIRO NO. 16 





er 
¥ 








22 


23 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


celebration of the event. (See Grolier Club: 
Catalogue of Japanese Landscape Prints, Num- 
ber 8.) No other impression of this print ap- 
pears to have survived. 

The seal is that of a collector. 

Size 10 x 72. (Frontispiece). 


HARUNOBU 


A young girl as Moso. This is another calendar 
print of the same year, the numerals being found 
among the bamboo leaves. 

Moso, one of “The Twenty-four Paragons of 
Filial Piety” of Chinese moralizing, went out 
barefoot in winter to search for young bamboo 
shoots, a table delicacy for which his aged mother 
craved, and was rewarded by having them sprout 
miraculously through the snow. The story, of 
course, was thoroughly familiar to the Japanese, 
but Moso is represented here by a young girl. 
Subject reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 7, 
and, from a much trimmed impression, Hayashi 
Catalogue, p. 168. 

Size 11% x 83. 


HARUNOBU 


A young girl seated in a boat under drooping 
willow branches. She wears a long court hat 
of the olden time and has beside her a small 
drum—one of the classical instruments used 
from of old. The reference is to the pleasure 
boat wherein a Shogun of a by-gone age had 


23 


24 


25 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


been wont to escape the cares of government in 
the company of his mistress, the beautiful Asa- 
zuma. A Shogun was a prime minister who had 
usurped the secular power of the Emperor but 
not the Imperial name. 

Print reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II, No. 
72. Some of the too heavy oxidization has been 
removed. 

Size 11 x 83. 


HARUNOBU 


Two young women walking through a storm of 
snow and rain on their way to a bath house. 
One carries a towel and a bath robe. 

Bathing is one of the national passions of the 
Japanese, and in the late afternoons the streets 
are filled with people returning from the bathing 
establishments. 

Subject reproduced, Morrison Catalogue of Ex- 
hibition held by Fine Art Society of London, 
1910, No. 68; Crewdson Catalogue, No. 31, and, 
in color, Vol. I, Plate 16, of the Catalogue of 
Japanese Prints, owned by the Louvre. 

Signed Suzuki Harunobu. 

Size 103 x 83. 


HARUNOBU 

A young girl on a verandah stands alone, against 
the black background of night, lighting with her 
lantern the white blossoms of a plum tree in early 
bloom. It has been pointed out already that the 


24 


8 

: 3 

: \ 
J fie FABER NT 3 aa 
Reet, 2 ey 


Rupe HE 





17 


KIYOMITSU NO. 


PLATE VIII 





" ' 
- 

, 

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x 





26 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Japanese are devoted to flowers. When the dif- 
ferent blooms are at their finest, parties go out 
by day and night to view them, and the plum is 
the earliest blossom of the year—the harbinger 
of Spring. 

Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of 
October, 1919, No. 41. 

Subject reproduced with some variations, V. I. 
Catalogue, Vol. II, No. 66. 

Size 123 x 8}. 


HARUNOBU 


A girl and a woman shaping, over lacquer forms 
with dome-shaped tops, floss silk that has been 
pressed into sheets. 

The perfection of technique in the cutting of the 
blocks and in the printing is extraordinary. 

This and the two following numbers are from a 
set of “ Eight Indoor Views.” In their first state 
these eight prints bear the signature of Kiosen, 
who may have been an amateur engraver and 
printer, and almost certainly was a patron for 
whom prints were designed—the moving spirit 
in an artist’s club or society that issued them. 
The so-called “second state,” of which three 
examples are shown, has no signature, and the 
characteristic yellow or straw color of early 
Harunobus has been supplanted by stronger 
tones. In a third state, that frequently bears 
the signature of Harunobu, the color scheme is 
still more complicated. 


25 


27 


28 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


The Catalogue of the Exhibition of the Japan 
Society of New York reproduces in color all three 
states of one sheet of the set. All eight, in the 
first state, are reproduced in the Moslé Catalogue 
and in the second state—like those shown here 
—in the Harunobu Memorial Catalogue. 

Size 113 x 8}. 


HARUNOBU 


A young woman reading by the light of a portable 
lamp. From the same set as the last. It has 
been said that prints in which a good deal of 
black was used and prints in which the figures 
were not displayed against a complicated back- 
ground were apt to be finer than others. This 
print, which is one of Harunobu’s most charming 
designs, illustrates the first rule and is a notable 
exception to the second. The stream, the shore 
and the maple leaves give exactly what was 
needed. 

Subject reproduced as stated above. 

Size 114 x 83. 


HARUNOBU 
A young girl with open fan, followed by her maid, 
From the same set as Numbers 26 and 27, and of 
the same state. 
Subject reproduced as stated above, and also in 
the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II. No. 80. 
Size 114 x 8. 

26 


MEBRL MAIS, 


Ghd 


\ 





KIYOMITSU NO. 18 


PLATE IX 


AE pre he 
5 * ' 


a 





29 


30 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


HARUNOBU 


Stealing the Blossoms. A young girl has climbed 
up on the back of her maid to reach a tempting 
branch of plum-blossoms above a gray wall. 
In the upper classes long sleeves were the pre- 
rogative of youth, and from childhood to age 
they grew steadily shorter. Servants wore short 
sleeves, as in this print and Number 28; long ones 
would have interfered with their work. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II, No. 
115. 

Size 102 x 7%. 


The nine prints by Harunobu that have been 
catalogued thus far can be dated with consider- 
able confidence between New Year’s Day of 1765 
and the close of 1767. Thesix that follow should 
probably be ascribed to the final two and a half 
years of the artist’s life. 


HARUNOBU 


Young lovers beside a green bamboo fence. The 
youth is stooping over to remove a clog of snow 
from the geta, or patten, of the girl. Above are 
some verses: 


Even today snow makes the road well- 
nigh impassable; if it should storm again 
tomorrow who could expect him to come? 


27 


31 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Print reproduced in color, Transactions of the 
Grolier Club, Part III. 

Signed Suzuki Harunobu. Probable date 1768. 
Size 114 x 83. 


HARUNOBU 

A young girl and her maid on a wind-swept beach. 
The young lady’s companion, perhaps pleading 
for a rejected lover, points to a rock against 
which the waves are beating, while above is a 
well-known classical poem by Minamoto no 
Shigeyuki, which, with due regard to the implied 
meaning understood by the Japanese, might be 
interpreted: 


My heart is like a wave 
Broken against the rock of her denial. 


There is an inference in this poem that, though 
each wave is broken, in the end the rock itself is 
worn away. 

These verses are in the thirty-one-syllable form, 
for when the Japanese wish to write a long poem 
and say a great deal they add two lines, of seven 
syllables each, to the short seventeen-syllable 
form, referred to under Number 9g; the construc- 
tion being like that of a sonnet with a distinct 
break and change of thought in a specified place. 


‘Subject reproduced, Harunobu Memorial Cata- 


logue, No. 90; Frederick May Catalogue, No. 
567, and Sotheby Catalogue of January, 1911— 
An Importer of Japanese Products, No. 60. 

28 








PLATE X KIYOMITSU NO. I9 


7 
i 


32 


a3 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Signed Suzuki Harunobu. Probable date 1768. 
Size 114 x 84. 


HARUNOBU 


A young lady who received so many love-letters 
that she was obliged to have an ox carry them 
forher. The background of evanescent blue that 
was in many of Harunobu’s prints is here only 
partially decomposed. 

This print is described in the V. I. Catalogue 
Vol. II, No. 217, and the subject is reproduced 
in the Kinbei Murata Catalogue of July, 1913. 
Probable date 1769. 

Size 102 x 84. (Plate XI). 


HARUNOBU 


Young lovers walking under snow-laden willow 
branches. This is one of Harunobu’s finest 
designs, an exquisite print in every line from the 
drooping branches above to the bottom sweep of 
the moving draperies. The Japanese call it the 
“Crow and Heron,” probably because the youth 
is dressed in black, while the girl’s outer kimono 
is white with patterning in gauffrage. A later— 
less effective—state shows a black bounding line 
about the soft snow on top of the umbrella, with 
changes in the patterns of the textiles. 

The print exhibited was reproduced in color as 
the frontispiece of the Catalogue of the Exhi- 
bition given by the Japan Society of New York 
in 1911; the state with the black bounding line 


29 


34 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


and changed patterns may best be compared in 
the reproduction in the Hayashi Catalogue, p. 
110; and there is still a third, badly engraved and 
with other differences. 

Signed Suzuki Harunobu. Probable date 1769. 
Size 114 x 83. 


and 35 HARUNOBU 


Pillar prints, representing that pair of star-cros- 
sed lovers, Shirai Gompachi and Komurasaki, each 
in komuso attire, and carrying the basket hat and 
flute. 

Prints of this shape were made to be hung as 
decorations on the square wooden pillars of 
Japanese houses, and having been more fre- 
quently exposed to the light, are difficult to find 
in the condition of these. The story of the un- 
fortunate lovers is too long to be retold here, 
but those who desire to read a digest of it may be 
referred to Joly’s “Legend in Japanese Art,” p. 
98. <A few lines, however, must be given to ex- 
plaining the word komuso. A komuso originally 
was a person of the warrior class who for some 
reason had fallen into disgrace and taken sanctu- 
ary ina monastery. When he wandered abroad 
the deep basket hat prevented recognition and 
the flute furnished a means of subsistence; be- 
sides which the civil authorities hesitated to inter- 
fere with an unidentified person who could be seen 
at a glance to have put himself under the pro- 
tection of the Church. The costume, however, 


30 





HARUNOBU NO. 32 


PLATE XI 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


became a convenient one—particularly the hat— 
for people who wished to escape justice or to go 
about incognito, and apparently it was used often 
by those who had much less reason than Gom- 
pachi for wishing to conceal their identity. Even 
today the komuso sometimes is seen, and no one 
would think of being rude enough to discover by 
force the identity of a person who wished to re- 
main unknown. Sometimes, in prints, a girl 
upon whom a komuso is calling, will hold out a 
mirror or bowl of water to catch a reflection of 
the hidden face; but that was a woman’s trick, 
which doubtless was pardoned. 

The Gompachi measures 283 x 5 and was re- 
produced in the Catalogue of the first Metzgar 
Sale, 1916, No. 276. It is a famous impression of 
a famous print. 

The Komurasaki measures 273 x 5. The subject 
is reproduced in the Van Caneghem Catalogue, 
No. 204. 

Both prints are signed. The probable date of 
their publication is the early part of 1770, a few 
weeks before the artist’s death. 


HARUSHIGE 


Little is known of this artist save that he made 
good pictures; but much is conjectured. He may 
have been a son or pupil of Harunobu, his may be 
an early signature of Koriusai’s; and, for the con- 
fusion of critics, a talented reprobate named Shiba 


31 


36 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Kokan, who was a few years younger than Har- 
unobu and lived much longer, left memoirs to be 
published after his death, in which he states not 
only that he was Harushige but calls particular 
attention to the fact—if fact it be—that many of 
the best-known prints attributed to, and even 
signed, Harunobu had been made by himself, 
the master’s signature having been forged to fool 
the public or to make the prints sell. Shiba 
Kokan appears to have been perfectly capable of 
playing a posthumous joke on posterity for his 
own glory and our confusion; on the other hand 
he proved himself to have been an artist of very 
genuine talent whether he was working in the 
Japanese way or experimenting in European per- 
spective and copper-plate engraving after the 
manner of prints brought by Dutch traders to 
the open port of Nagasaki. Those who think 
they can tell Shiba Kokan Harunobus from real 
Harunobus claim that the figures in the former 
have longer, thinner necks. There are, however, 
prints signed Harushige in which the necks are 
more short and round than those in the one ex- 
hibited. 


HARUSHIGE 


A scene in a restaurant beside a river, two girls 
in front; through the partially open shojz (sliding 
paper partitions) are seen the shadows of the 
guests, one of whom has broken a hole through 
the shoji to look at the girls. The name of the 


32 


o acne th A SITES I NOS NS IO Sa \\ 
Pa | z 





HARUSHIGE NO. 30 


PLATE XII 


37 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


tea-house is given at the end of the poem above, 
which relates that the girls, touched by the 
melancholy of autumn, are disinclined to help 
entertain the guests. 

Subject reproduced, Kinbei, Murata Catalogue 
of October, 1911. 

Signed Harushige. 

Size 114 x 84. (Plate XII). 


BUNCHO (worked Ca. 1768-1775) 


Bunché, an artist of delicate line and a great 
colorist, stands a little apart from the men of his 
time; unrelated, individual. Mr. Ficke has de- 
veloped an interesting, romantic theory about his 
sensitive personality, which may have little basis 
in fact but makes excellent reading. (‘‘Chats 
on Japanese Prints,” pp. 186-193.) Bunchd 
was of somewhat higher rank than most of the 
artists of the popular school, the great body 
of whom were distinctly of the lower classes 
for whom they worked. The red seal on his 
prints bears his family name, Mori. His color 
schemes are as different as his line from those of 
others. 


BUNCHO 

The comedian Arashi Otohachi wearing a farm- 
er’s hat and holding two fish by a cord. 

Portraits of comedians are somewhat rare, the 
public apparently preferring for its souvenirs, 


33 


38 


39 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


pictures of the tragic actors in their moments of 
tense dramatic passion. 

Subject reproduced, Sotheby Catalogue of June 
23, 1013; INOa3s 

Signed and sealed by Bunché. 

Size 112 x 52. 


BUNCHO 


The actor Matsumoto Koshiro III who in 1770 
became Danjuro V. A decoration of iris on his 
white under robe. 

Signed and sealed by Bunchd. 

Size 127 x 5%. 


BUNCHO 


Iwai Hanshiro IV as Okaru in the seventh act of 
Chushingura. Note the characteristic richness 
of color and the equally characteristic distortion 
of the curiously poised, slim figure with its sweep- 
ing curve. 
This is the first of the prints exhibited that has 
to do with the most famous and popular of all 
Japanese plays, the Chushingura, or Tale of the 
47 Ronin, an excellent translation of which by 
Jukichi Inouye has been published in Tokyo. 
John Masefield has paraphrased—not very satis- 
factorily—a part of it in “The Faithful.” (See 
notes, under Numbers 60, 67, 68, 71). The play 
is so popular that it has to be revived every year 
and the difficulty of getting a place is extreme. 
The best places are near the “Flower Walk” 


34 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


or path raised above the pit by which the actors 
pass between the rear of the theatre and the 
stage—an arrangement made familiar to us by 
Rheinardt’s production of “Sumurun.” The ac- 
tors frequently stop for posturing in the middle 
of the Flower Walk and he whose place is near 
them is a fortunate person. The floor of a 
Japanese theatre is divided into what look like 
cucumber frames, separated by two-inch railings. 
Into each of these frames which are theoretically 
six feet square (two mats) but actually are 
smaller, four spectators get, the Japanese having 
an inherited ability to fold themselves like pen- 
knives and remain shut for hours. Some per- 
formances of Chushingura begin at ten in the 
morning and continue until five in the afternoon, 
when they stop abruptly with the play unfinished, 
to make room for the evening performance of 
some other piece. The compiler has seen three 
productions of parts of this play, but never yet 
has he been fortunate enough to witness the 
death of the villain—and Moronao is the kind 
of a villain that one particularly likes to see die. 
When the company is a good one the acting is 
impressive and moving in the extreme, and the 
costumes are most effective with their beautiful 
stiff brocades in luminous folds of color. 
Print reproduced, Frederick May Catalogue, No. 
1125. 
Signed and sealed by Buncho. 
Size 122 x-54. 

35 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


40 BUNCHO 


4 


— 


Chosan, a tea-house beauty, walking through a 
snow-storm with her attendants. In the upper 
corner is a letter addressed to the girl, “from one 
she knows.” 

Print reproduced by Ficke, Plate 22. 

Signed and sealed by Buncho. 

Size 122 x 6. 


BUNCHO 


Nakamura Kiyoz6 as a woman on a snowy night, 
outside a closed gate. Black background. 

An impression of the same subject, but appa- 
rently with a gray instead of a black sky, is 
reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 148. 
Signed and sealed by Buncho. 

Published by Nishimura. 

Size 12% X 53. 


SHUNSHO (1726-1793) 


Katsukawa Shunsho, one of the most powerful 
and dramatic artists of the popular school, is 
unquestionably the greatest designer of actor 
prints—Sharaku, with his limited production 
and strong satiric tendency, standing somewhat 
apart. He was enormously productive; the 
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, for example, has 
over seven hundred prints by him; but like all 
artists who did a great deal of work, his quality 
is variable. Very few prints by Shunsho are 


36 





SHUNSHO NO. 42 


PLATE: Ali) 





42 


43 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


poor, most are good to very good, all are interest- 
ing and many are so extraordinarily fine in their 
dramatic power as to make him without a peer in 
his special field. Shunshd has a secondary im- 
portance as the teacher of Shunko and Shunyei, 
some of whose prints are exhibited, and of several 
other notable designers—among them Hokusai, 
whose signature on graduation from his master’s 
studio was Shunro. (See note on pupils’ names 
under Number 10.) 


SHUNSHO 


The actor, Bando Matataro, dressed in black. 
Above him is an inscription in white giving a line 
from the play, which is of little interest to us but 
probably was spoken at the dramatic moment de- 
picted. 

Signed with Shunshd’s jar seal which appears in 
this form chiefly on prints of his early period. 
Date about 1768. 

Size 11 x 5%. (Plate XIII). 


SHUNSHO 


The hero Gompachi, Harunobu’s representation 
of whom is shown as Number 34, is here repre- 
sented by the actor Ichikawa Monnosuke. Gom- 
pachi’s komuso disguise is described in the note 
on the print referred to above. 

The subject, if not the identical print, 1s repro- 
duced in the Tokyo volume of “Selected Actor 
Prints,’’ No. 146. 


37 


44 


45 


46 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Signed Shunshd. Date 1772. 
Size 12 x 53. 


SHUNSHO 


Black background. The actor Nakamura Na- 
kazo as a Buddhist pilgrim. He carries the 
pilgrim’s staff, and on his back is a portable 
shrine bearing an inscription which reads: “‘ The 
most famous man of past or present in all the 
sixty-six provinces.” The rdle probably is that of 
Sometar6 Yoshikado. 

Signed Shunshd. Date about 1780. 

Size 123 x 5¢. (Plate XIV). 


SHUNSHO 

Black background. The actor Ichikawa Danzo 
as a samurat holding a lantern whose flaring rays 
illuminate the dark sky. A samurai was a feudal 
retainer of the warrior class who was privileged 
to wear two swords. 

Signed Shunshd. Date uncertain. 

Size 12% X 52. 


SHUNSHO 


“The Red Danjuro.” The 5th Ichikawa Dan- 
juro in a shibaraku, or “wait a moment,” réle. 
Between the acts, or at the close of a performance 
when the company was assembled on the stage 
the leading actor was accustomed to run down 
the “Flower Walk,”’ described under Number 39, 


38 


6 
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PLATE XIV SHUNSHO NO. 44 





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47 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


call out “Wait a moment” and perform a brief 
act of his own, to the particular delectation of 
those who had been fortunate enough to secure 
places in that part of the house. These inter- 
ludes were played with a voluminous red dressing- 
gown thrown over the costume. In this print 
the mon, or crest, on the curtains behind the 
actor is that of the Nakamura Theatre. The 
large white mon of concentric squares, so promi- 
nent on the costume, is that of Danjuro himself. 
The blue background that so often decomposes 
to dull yellow (see note on Number 32) here is 
perfectly preserved. 

Print reproduced, “Asia,” October, 1923. 
Subject reproduced, “Selected Actor Prints,’’ No. 
164; and in color, Succo’s “Shunsho,”’ Plate 33. 
Signed Shunsho. Date 1776. 

Size 122 x 53. 


SHUNSHO 


“The Black Danjuro.” The 5th Danjuro once 
more; but this time in voluminous black on 
which is a great white ideograph indicating Kin- 
toki, that fabulous young Hercules who grew up 
with his wild mountain mother and performed 
such amazing feats of strength. 

The make-up of the face with red lines was an 
hereditary privilege of the Danjuros or of the 
Ichikawa actor-family to which they belonged. 
The Danjuros were the greatest of all Japanese 
tragic actors, and the 4th, 5th, and oth were the 


39 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


greatest of the Danjuros. In fact, since the 
death of the oth Danjuro, about twenty years 
ago, no actor has been found universally con- 
sidered worthy to take the name and the various 
aspirants continue to sigh in vain. The 4th 
Danjuro gave the name to the 5th, who happened 
to be his son, in 1770. In this print the mon 
nowhere appears but the face is unmistakable 
Both the 4th and 5th Danjuros had very long 
noses, but the face of the 5th was a little more full, 
a little less thin, than that of his great predeces- 
sor. 

Print reproduced, “Selected Actor Prints,’ No. 
170. 

Signed Shunshd. Date 1781. 

Size 122 x 53. 


48 SHUNSHO 


The actor Ichikawa Monnosuke II as Shosho, the 
Mistress of one of the Soga brothers whose story 
is referred to in the note on Number 13. He 
holds aloft a jar of incense. The costumes of the 
Soga play are apt to be easy to identify by the 
butterflies of one brother and the fat little chz- 
dort birds of the other; as in the print referred to 
above, where both are seen. Compare Number 
17. 

Subject reproduced, “Selected Actor Prints,” 
No. 163. 

Signed Shunshsd. Date 1776. 

Size (13 x (6. 


40 





PLATE XV SHUNSHO NO. 49 





JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


49 SHUNSHO 


The 4th Iwai Hanshir6 as a woman in pink and 
white holding a round fan. 

Subject reproduced, Fig. 9, Fogg Art Museum 
Notes, January, 1923. 

Signed Shunsh6. Date about 1780. 

Size 112 x 54. (Plate XV). 


The dating of actor prints is one of the erudite 
subjects left undiscussed here; it may, however, 
be said briefly that the sources of knowledge are 
threefold: 

(1) With the help of the chronicles of the 
Yedo stage and after long independent researches, 
Mr. Frederick W. Gookin, and Major J. J. 
O’Brien Sexton of London have succeeded in 
discovering the actual dates of many perfor- 
mances the actors in which are represented in 
prints. 

(2) In 1919 there was published in Tokyo a 
volume of “Selected Actor Prints” giving repro- 
ductions of 300 prints which could be dated, at 
least approximately, either through the theatri- 
cal records preserved in the actors’ families or by 
means of contemporary inscriptions. 

(3) Shortly afterwards the Ukiyo-ye Magazine 
of the same city reproduced over fifty variations 
of Shunshd’s signature and seals, arranged in 
approximately chronological order and taken 
from prints the dates of which were known. 


41 


50 


> 


— 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


With these three authorities it should be easy to 
date any print by Shunsh6; but what is to be - 
done when the authorities disagree? | 


SHUNSHO 


The same actor as the last. A brilliant print in 

a perfect state of preservation. 

Print reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 11 
B. 

Signed Shunsh6d. Date about 1774. 

Size 122 x 6. 


SHUNSHO 


The actor Yamashita Kinsaku asa woman. Ac- 
tors changed their names and, by consequence, 
their crests, with an even more bewildering fre- 
quency than did the painters who depicted them; 
but fortunately a rich provincial who came to 
Yedo at this time, so enjoyed the theatre there 
that he commissioned Shunshéd and Bunch6 to 
make portraits of the principal actors he had 
seen, and these he had published in a three-vol- 
ume book, with the personal as well as the stage 
name of the actor printed outside the fan-shaped 
bounding lines of each picture. One can imagine 
what a supper he must have given the night be- 
fore he started back to the country, and how he 
felt the next morning when the bearers were 
ready at dawn. 

Signed Shunshd. Date about 1780. 

Size 122 x 58. 

42 





PLATE XVI SHUNKO NO. 54 





52 


53 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


SHUNSHO 


The same actor, Yamashita Kinsaku, holding a 
lute and standing on a river bank against the 
black background of night. 

Print reproduced, Frederick May Catalogue, No. 


333- 
Signed Shunshd. Date 1778. 
Size 12% x 53. 


It is rather odd that although Shunsh@ is thought 
to be at his best in his earlier maturity, almost 
all the eleven prints selected, after careful com- 
parison, for this exhibition should date from a 
later period. 


SHUNKO (1743-1812) 


Except for Hokusai, who early in his career 
broke away from the manner and traditions of 
his master, the most important of Shunshd’s 
many pupils were Shunko and Shunyei. About 
1790 Shunk6 was incapacitated by paralysis and 
the remaining twenty-two years of his life are 
a blank of which one does not like to think. 


SHUNKO 

The 5th Danjuro, other portraits of whom are 
shown as Numbers 46 and 47. Shunshdo’s print 
of this actor in the same performance is repro- 
duced in the H. E. Field Catalogue, No. 278. In 
some cases the former pupil surpassed the master, 


43 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


but Shunko is apt to have less dramatic power, 
more suavity. 

Signed Katsukawa Shunk6. Date about 1780. 
Size 12} X 54. 


54 SHUNKO 


55 


The actor Nakamura Tomijir6d as an old man. 
This is very different in line and feeling from any 
print by Shunk6’s master, Shunshd, with which 
the compiler happens to be familiar, and shows 
how original the finest work of Shunk6 was. 
Signed Shunk6d. Date about 1780. 

Size 11¢ x 5g. (Plate XVI). 


SHUNKO 


Another portrait of the 4th Iwai Hanshir6d (com- 
pare Numbers 49 and 50). Here he is dressed in 
black with purple obi and stands beneath a snow- 
laden willow. A rare subject that has not been 
reproduced hitherto, although it is one of the 
finest of Shunko’s designs. 

Signed Shunko. 

Size 12 x 53. (Plate XVII). 


SHUNYEI (1768-1819) 


Shunyei, an artist of marked originality, is 
ranked by many as almost the equal of Shunshé, 
with whom he certainly compares favorably in 
power of characterization and individuality of 
treatment, though he seldom, if ever, shows the 


44 


PLATE XVII 








56 


ae 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


tragic intensity of his master. It would be dif- 
ficult to make a mistake in the attribution of an 
unsigned Shunyei; the work of the other men 
when it lacks a signature, is harder to place with 
assurance. Shunyei is closer to Sharaku. No 
attempt has been made to date separately the 
four prints by Shunyei that have been chosen 
for exhibition; it is likely, however, that all were 
issued between 1780 and the close of the century. 


SHUNYEI 


A portrait of the 5th Danjuro (compare Num- 
bers, 46, 47, 53) on one of the rare occasions when 
he appeared as a woman—and an angry one at 
that; the actors who specialized in men’s or 
women’s réles very seldom attempting the other. 
The branch drooping into the top of the print is a 
device frequently employed by this artist. 
Subject reproduced, Joly and Tomita Catalogue, 
Plate XXVII, No. 60. 

Signed Shunyei and published by Tsuruya Kiei- 
mon. 

Size 124 X 5%. 


SHUNYEI 


Portrait of the actor Sawamura Sojuro in a pleas- 
ure boat. 
Print reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part I, 
No. 174. 
Signed Shunyei. 
Size 122 x 53. 

45 


58 


59 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


SHUNYEI 


The same actor as the last. This time he is in 
simple white set off by an obi of purple and 
stands, without accessories, against a gray sky 
with white blossoms above. 

Signed Shunyei and published by Tsuruya. 
Size 122 x 5%. (Plate XVIII). 


SHUNYEI 


This portrait of the 5th Danjuro may be com- 
pared with those by Shunshé and Shunko which 
are exhibited as Numbers 46, 47, 53, 56, and that 
by Sharaku, Number 71. All are notable works, 
and this, with the next print by Shunyei to be 
exhibited, is counted among the finest things he 
did. 

Danjuro stands, with drawn sword and swirling 
garments decorated with sea-weed, in water that 
swirls and breaks against the closed gate of a 
dam. His long hair, marvelously engraved and 
printed, has the rhythm of the draperies. His 
legs and arms are cased in mottled frog skin, 
for he is in the part of Tenjiku Tokubei—a tra- 
veler of the 17th Century whose exploits had be- 
come legendary, and who was supposed to have 
lived among frogs and to have been able to trans- 
form himself into a gigantic one by some special 
form of magic. ‘Tokubei, who is reported to have 
started on his first journey to India and Siam 
in 1633, is said to have been a mighty highway- 


46 


PLATE AVIII 





SHUNYEI NO. 58 





60 


61 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


man in his youth, but finally to have reformed 
and entered the priesthood, where it is likely that 
his parishioners—if he had any—took good care 
not to thwart him. In the print he is shown 
before his reformation. 

Signed Shunyei. 

Size 13 x6. (Plate XIX). 


SHUNYE]I 


The actor Ichikawa Komazo as a hunter in a 
straw rain-coat carrying a gun. He isin the rdle 
of the unfortunate Kanpei in Chushingura. (For 
the play see Number 39). Kanpei’s hunting was 
not very successful, for his only kill that night 
was an unrecognized man, and when he got home 
in the morning to find that the body of his father- 
in-law had just been brought in, the deductions 
from circumstantial evidence gave him at least a 
mauvais quart d’heure. | 
Subject reproduced, No. 176, Shojiro Nomura 
Catalogue (Sale Anderson Galleries) March 16, 
1915; and No. 82, Collection K. T., Hotel Drouot, 
February, 1910. 

Size 13 x 5%. (Plate XX). 


SHUNYEI 


Mica ground. Bust portrait of an unidentified 
round faced actor with no visible mon, or crest. 
He is leaning forward with outstretched right 
hand and is “made up” in red around his eyes 
and nose. The horizontal stripes of his kimono 


47 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


are red and white on his right side and green and 
white on his left. He faces toward the left. 

In some of Shunyei’s large actor-portraits, his 
style and that of Sharaku have a certain resem- 
blance. This fact has led a well-known crafty 
dealer in Tokyo to increase his profits by turn- 
ing fine Shunyei prints into fraudulent Sharakus, 
by the simple device of erasing or trimming off the 
Shunyei signature, adding a mica ground, and 
printing in the name of the other and rarer mas- 
ter. It isa pity; for Shunyei is strong enough 
to stand on his own feet. 

The present print has been thus altered. An 
unaltered example of it, with Shunyei’s signa- 
ture, 1s in the Vever Collection, Paris. 

Size 154 X 10. (Plate XX]1). 


SHARAKU 


Date of birth uncertain, died 1804. He ap- 
pears to have designed prints only in the years 
1794 and 1795. 

Much has been written about Sharaku, most 
notably—in spite of his poetic exaggeration—by 
Mr. Ficke in his “Chats on Japanese Prints,” pp. 
300-319; much could be written, and the tempta- 
tion is great. For the present, however, it must 
suffice to make clear, if possible, the human 
background and let the art speak for itself. The 
popular theatre was scorned—as prints were 
scorned—by all save the middle and lower classes; 


48 





SHUNYEI NO. 59 


PLATE XIX 





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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


the aristocrats, in the seclusion of their palaces, 
had the N6 dramas of exceedingly abstruse mean- 
ing and lofty moral tone that were danced and 
chanted before hushed audiences of scholars. 
Sharaku was a professional No dancer in the 
service of one of the great nobles, and he appears 
in his maturity to have come suddenly and for 
the first time into contact with the theatre of the 
people. It is as though some cloistered Fellow of 
Oxford, who had given his life to playing AEschy- 
lus and Sophocles there, should have witnessed 
a series of amateur nights in vaudeville. He 
saw the commonness of common men, their bes- 
tiality, their small conceit, their stupidity; he saw 
the animal characteristics in them so clearly that 
he would have been an excellent illustrator of 
Esop or of Gulliver’s Travels—the comparison 
with Swift is rather apt; and, in spite of rays of 
somewhat ironic humor that gleam occasionally 
from his portraits, he drew them in the main with 
savage scorn, with that blind bitterness which is 
the child of disillusion. He reveals the plebeian 
actors as Goya revealed the Spanish Bourbons— 
but there is this vast difference: Sharaku was 
able to let himself go, Goya was not. Portraits of 
popular idols drawn in this vein are not likely to 
prove popular; and after two years of the uninter- 
rupted production of masterpieces Sharaku ceased 
to make prints. The rest is silence. There are 
rumors and conjectures as to his later years but 
nothing very definite is known; nor is it known 


49 


62 


63 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


just how many prints he designed during those 
two years of bitter activity. Herr Kurth, who 
wrote a book on Sharaku, was able to record about 
seventy subjects and reproduce fifty-nine of them: 
after which the French collectors hung 105, all 
of which are reproduced as part of one of those 
exhibitions at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, of 
which the V. I. Catalogues are the monumental 
record. Of the eleven selected for exhibition 
here, all are signed Toshusai Sharaku and were 
published by Tsutaya. The references to Kurth 
are to the edition of 1910, which most collectors 
have. The 1922 edition has the same illustra- 
tions re-numbered. 


SHARAKU 


Yellow ground. The actor Segawa Tomisabur6d 
as a woman defending a child. 

The subject is recorded by Kurth, No. 19 (QO). 
The V. I. Catalogue does not containit. It is re- 
produced, however, as No. 14, in the advertisement 
of Rex & Company at the end of Kurth’s volume. 
Size 13 Xx 6. 


SHARA KU 


Yellow ground. Yamashina Tomijir6 as a 
samurat holding a painted fan. 
Subject reproduced, Kurth, Plate 31. Not in 
V. I. Catalogue. 
Size 122 x 6. 

50 





SHUNYEI NO. 60 


PLATE XX 





64 


65 


66 


67 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


SHARAKU 


Yellow ground. Ichikawa Yaoz6o as a samurai 
in a black robe decorated with the so-called 
“thunder pattern.” 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, 
No. 315. 

Size 122 x 54. 


SHARAKU 


Mica ground. The same actor as the last in the 
role of Kanpei in “Chushingura.” The play is 
referred to in the note on No. 39 and the réle 
under No. 60. 

Print reproduced, H. E. Field Catalogue, No. 577. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 
277, and Kurth, Plate 42. 

Size 15% X 10. 


SHARAKU 


Mica ground. Matsumoto Koshiré, with a pipe 
in his hand, in the réle of a “chivalrous defen- 
der of the down-trodden.” (Otokodate). Is this 
satire or burlesque? 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 
270, and Kurth, Plate 44. 

Size 15 X 10%. 


SHARAKU 


Mica ground. Arashi Ryiizo. The rdle is said, 
without definite authority, to be that of Yoichi- 
bel, a peasant, in ‘‘Chushingura.”’ 


51 


68 


69 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Print reproduced, Rouart Catalogue, No. 308. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. ITI, 
No. 271, and Kurth, Plate 35. 

Size 14% X Oz. 


SHARAKU 


Mica ground. Iwai Hanshir6d as Oishi, wife of 
Yuranosuke, hero of “Chushingura.”’ For other 
portraits of this actor see Numbers 40, 50, 55. 
The play is referred to under Numbers 39, 60, 
and elsewhere. Yuranosuke is really the hero of 
the piece, for the action concerns itself chiefly 
with the efforts of forty-seven loyal retainers, 
seconded by their wives, to avenge the death of 
their lord on the villain, Moronao; and Yurano- 
suke, besides being the chief retainer, is the brain 
of the devoted band. The graves of these forty- 
seven men are visited annually by thousands, 
for they really lived, and in their deaths as in 
their lives left to posterity an example of that un- 
swerving, utterly self-sacrificing loyalty which of 
all virtues is that most honored by the Japanese. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, 
No. 269, and Kurth, Plate 51. 

Size 142 x of. 


SHARAKU 

Mica ground. Kosagawa Tsueny6as the wife of 
one of the Ronin in “ Chushingura”’ (see notes on 
Numbers 30, 68, etc., for this play). A ronin is 
a masterless samurai or fighting man. The re- 


52 


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PLATE XXI SHUNYEI NO. 61 








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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


tainers in this play became ronin through the 
death of their lord and the confiscation of his 
property. 

Subject reproduced, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. III, 
No. 282, and Kurth, Plate 52. 

Size 15 X 103. 


SHARAKU 


Mica ground. Ichikawa Komazo. 

Print reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 35, 
where the inscription on the print is read and 
the question of the réle discussed. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, 
No. 274, and Kurth, Plate 39. 

Size 142 X Of. 


SHARAKU 


Mica ground. In this subject, which is con- 
sidered by many the finest work by Sharaku and 
the most powerful of Japanese prints, the 5th Dan- 
juro is again depicted (compare Numbers 46,47, 
53, 56, and 59), this time, probably, as Moronao, 
the crafty, cowardly and lecherous villain of the 
play described in the note on Number 39, and 
elsewhere. 

An inscription on the face of the print gives the 
date of the performance, October, 1794. The ques- 
tion of the réle, with particular reference to the 
written inscription on this impression of the print, 
was considered at length under Number 30 of the 
Jacquin Catalogue, with the conclusion that the 


53 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


actor was, as has always been supposed, playing 
Moronao. Mr. Gookin seems sufficiently to have | 
overwhelmed with his arguments a Japanese 
cataloguer of 1918, who considered the réle 
that of Kudo Suketsune; but the Japanese, as 
a race, are hard to down and another critic of 
that country has replied to the Retort Courteous 
with a Quip Modest: Moronao never wears kama- 
shimo; therefore the character cannot be Mo- 
ronao but might be the Daimyo Matsumoto 
Hosokawa. The present writer is sure of but 
one thing: whether the character be that of the 
villain Moronao or some other, there can be no 
possible doubt of his villainy. It takes but 
little scholarship to see that. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue. Vol. III, 
No. 264 and Kurth, Plate 38. 

Size 14% X 10. 


KORIUSAI (worked Ca. 1768-1786) 


Koriusai’s finest work, except for a few very 
distinguished “pillar” prints, is in his birds and 
flowers. Occasionally, as in the print now exhi- 
bited, he did a really fine thing in the ordinary 
15 x 10 inch form, but most of the work of his 
maturity is rather coarse and garish. His early 
prints are strongly under the influence of Haru- 
nobu, and most of them are of the small size made 
popular by that master, but much less used in 
the period upon which we are now about to enter. 


54 


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PLATE XXII KORIUSAI NO. 72 


72 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


He is important enough to deserve a place in any 
exhibition, but in the limited space available 
it seemed best to show only one carefully chosen 
example of his figure prints. 


KORIUSAI 


The Courtesan Nishikigi followed by her atten- 
dants. From a series of fashion plates for the 
demi-monde. 

Signed by Koriusai and published by Eijudo. 
Seal Koshodd. This seal is that of another pub- 
lisher, Tsutaya Jusaburd. In this set it only ap- 
pears on the earliest impressions of certain prints. 
Its presence and meaning are discussed under 
Number 20 of the privately printed catalogue 
of prints in the collection of Major O’Brien Sex- 
ton. Date about 1776. 

Size 157 x 10%. (Plate XXII). 


SHIGEMASA (1739-1820) 


Kitao Shigemasa, a pupil of the “Primitive” 
Shigenaga, was an accomplished artist of thirty- 
one when Harunobu died; but he survived until 
within five years of the death of Toyokuni, the 
final great artist of the figure prints; and when he 
himself looked for the last time on the world he 
had depicted, Hokusai had been drawing that 
world for more than twenty years and Hiroshige 
was finishing his student work. Shigemasa’s 
early prints were done in the three-color period; 


55 


73 


74 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


later he was influenced strongly by Harunobu 
and other masters of polychrome, and worked in 
many styles, bringing, however, to each his own 
peculiar distinction of treatment. Early prints 
by Shigemasa are signed, but toward the middle 
of his career he is said to have remarked that, as 
no one else could draw as well as he, there was no 
necessity of affixing his signature. The work of 
his maturity is as rare as it is fine, either because 
he did little of it, or because his prints were pub- 
lished in unusually small editions. 


SHIGEMASA 


A geisha going to a party followed by her maid 
who carries a samisen (Japanese banjo) in a box. 
This style of Shigemasa’s is peculiarly character- 
istic. It has a plastic quality of modeling, par- 
ticularly in some of the folds of the drapery that 
suggests sculpture in wood or clay. 

Subject reproduced, British Museum Catalogue 
(Binyon) p. 78; and in color, Binyon and Sexton, 
Plate VII, from an impression with one less color 
block than the one exhibited. 

Probable date about 1780. 

Size 154 X 103. 


SHIGEMASA 
Two young women in thin summer kimono; one. 
is seated beside a lantern on a bamboo bench, 
the other stands holding a fan. 

50 





SHIGEMASA NO. 74 


PLATE XXIII 


f~ 





JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


A lovely print by Shigemasa in a style that is 
difficult to distinguish from that of the finest 
work of his pupil, Kitao Masanobu, who, however 
was accustomed to sign his prints. 

Date about 1790. 

Size 143 x 92. (Plate XXIII). 


KIYONAGA (1752-1814) 


Kiyonaga is considered by many the greatest 
of the artists who designed the Japanese figure 
prints. In power of composition, power of line, 
he is superb, and his people are stately, large- 
limbed, nobly-proportioned, gracious. Compare 
any print by him with a print by Harunobu and 
notice the gain and loss. It is a grown-up world 
that is depicted here, more real, perhaps, than 
the other, less charming and moreimpressive. Of 
the impressiveness of Kiyonaga at his best there 
can be no question; he was a master of his art; 
but the present writer is heretical enough to be- 
lieve that sometimes his figures are too statuesque 
—too much like manikins, too little like creatures 
of flesh and blood. One may admire Kiyonaga 
more than Harunobu but is certain to love him less. 
All of the prints by this artist that have been se- 
lected for exhibition are signed by him, and all 
that have publishers’ marks were published by 
Eijudo. They were issued—in all probability— 
between 1780 and 1790; but there is no way of 
dating them as accurately as actor prints, when 


57 


ce 


76 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


the records of particular performances have sur- 
vived. Kiyonaga also did an important series 
of scenes from the theatre—large sheets, fre- 
quently with six figures each. 


KTYONAGA 


The actor Ichikawa Yaozdin his bedroom. He is 
listening to the words of a companion who has 
not been identified with certainty, but may have 
been his wife. Is it the duty of this cataloguer to 
find out? Mr. Gookin, who has a penchant for — 
actors, once thought that the second figure was 
a player of women’s réles, come to see Yaozo 
without taking off his stage clothes. M. Vignier 
assumes the worst. 

The print is from a series, as fine as it is rare, of 
actors off the stage. 

Subject reproduced on page 94 in the Catalogue of 
the Memorial Exhibition of Japanese Prints from 
the Collection of Clarence Buckingham (Chi- 
cago 1915), and Haviland Catalogue of June, 
1923, No. 191. 

Size 112 x 5%. 


KIYONAGA 


The Iris Garden. This is the right-hand sheet 
of a diptych afterwards re-engraved. The left- 
hand sheet is in the New York Public Library 
and elsewhere; but the composition would sug- 
gest a possible triptych of which the sheet on 
the extreme right has not been seen. 


58 


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KIYONAGA NO. 77 


PLATE XXIV 





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77 


78 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Print reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 62. 
An impression of the second state, with the de- 
sign re-drawn, is reproduced in color as Plate 12 
of Fenollosa’s “An Outline of the History of 
Ukiyo-ye.”’ 

Size 144 X g3. 


KIYONAGA 


The left-hand sheet of a diptych. A tall woman 
in black and rose standing beside a_ barred 
window, through which a snow landscape is seen. 
In the foreground are a man about to write anda 
child fanning a brazier. Another child behind. 
Both sheets of this diptych are in the New York 
Public Library. 

Size 15g x 10. (Plate XXIV). 


KIYONAGA 


The Serenade. This is the left-hand, and by far 
the finest, sheet of a triptych representing a scene 
from one of the medizval romances that are to 
the Japanese what the “Morte d’Arthur”’ is, or 
might be, to us. In Japan everyone recognizes 
an episode from these stories as quickly as the 
ancient Greeks would have recognized an epi- 
sode out of Homer; they are the common prop- 
erty of all. A comparison between the Japanese 
romances and let us say, the “ Morte d’Arthur” or 
“Amadis of Gaul”’ is interesting. There is just 
as much fighting in the one as in the other, the 
heroes perform deeds of equally amazing prowess; 


99 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


but in the Japanese stories the women are more 
heroic, more capable; they are not, as the adora- 
tion of the Virgin Mary made them with us, 
white and aloof, to be protected and died for. 
In Japan, as in Greece, the bonds of chivalry 
were between men; and the women take, when 
necessity arises, a very active part in affairs, are 
helpmates in the fullest meaning of the word. 
In those eras of Japanese history when the in- 
fluence of China was not dominant, the position 
of women, especially in the court circles, was 
exalted, and their education was quite equal 
to that of the men. The first and greatest of 
Japanese novelists, for example, was a woman, 
and one of the most moving episodes in all ro- 
mance is the dance of Shizuka before Yoritomo 
—the beautiful young girl, captive and broken- 
hearted, before the cruel brother of the man she 
loved. 

In the print exhibited, Yoritomo’s young brother, 
Prince Yoshitsune, the most popular among the 
noble heroes of Japan, is seen in an earlier part 
of his career, playing a serenade outside a palace, 
the mistress of which has sent her maid to iden- 
tify the musician. It was an evening of “peril- 
ous moonlight,’’ and the end of the story that 
is scarcely more than an episode in the life of 
Yoshitsune, was, for the beautiful young inmate 
of the palace, death. 

This print, the garden background of which is in 
green as it should be, not yellow, is reproduced as 


60 


19 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


No. 291 in the Catalogue of the Shotaro Sato 
Sale, New York, 1916. Impressions of the whole 
triptych in the first state are reproduced in the 
Hayashi Catalogue, p. 216, and elsewhere. A 
reissue of the print was made from recut blocks 
with the moon left out, and other changes, and 
this second state of the sheet exhibited may best 
be compared with the first in the reproduction of 
the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 109. 

Size 152 X 10%. 


KIYONAGA 


Two ladies out for a walk accompanied by a maid 
servant and a young samurai. It is pleasant to 
find that some of Kiyonaga’s statuesque beauties 
are of what might be called good society. Ladies 
dressed, of course, in a much less ostentatious 
manner than the courtesans; the obz are not tied 
in front and the showy hair pins are not worn. 
From a series, perhaps of fashion plates, called: 
“Brocades of the Eastern Capital.” The East- 
ern Capital was Yedo, now Tokyo, as distin- 
suished from Kyoto. The Shoguns who had 
usurped the power—like the Mayors of the Palace 
of early France—kept their state in Yedo; the 
Emperors had their quieter court at Kyoto. 
Print reproduced in color: Arthur Morrison, 
Catalogue of Exhibition of The Fine Art Society, 
London, 1910, No. 104, and Huish, “Japan and 
its Art,” (Third edition), Plate II. 

Size 15% X 108. 

61 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


80 KIYONAGA 


81 


82 


The courtesan Wakakusa of Chojiya followed by 
her attendants. 

A marvel of printing, perfectly preserved. This 
is a sheet from a set illustrating spring fashions 
of the demi-monde, in which Kiyonaga and Kori- 
usai appear to have collaborated. See No. 72. 
Subject reproduced, No. 205, Sotheby Catalogue 
of May 31, 1921: The First Portion of the Col- 
lection of T. Thacher Clarke. 

Size 15 X 105. 


KIYONAGA 


A young man with two geisha; the one at the left 
stands holding a round fan, the one at the right 
is seated with a samisen, or Japanese banjo, 
across her lap. 

Notice the perfect placing of the black pouch in 
the foreground, without which the print would 
lose half its beauty. It is from a Series showing 
the “Real Beauties of the Gay Quarters.” 
Subject reproduced, Van Caneghem Catalogue, 
No. 63, and Sotheby Catalogue of November 27, 
1913: The Collection of an American Artist Re- 
siding in Europe, No. 78. 

Size 14% x 104. 


KIYONAGA 


The actor Matsumoto Koshiro having tea with 
two geisha. 


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PLATE XXV KIYONAGA NO. 82 





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84 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Print reproduced, No. 452 B, Matsuki Sale, 
American Art Galleries, February, 1908. 
Size 15¢ X 10g. (Plate XXV). 


KIYONAGA 


The Salt Gatherers. Two peasant girls at the 
edge of the sea, carrying the buckets in which 
they gather salt-water. Again in this print there 
is a reference to an old romance, for the two girls 
represent Matsukaze and Murasame, who passed 
into legend and became the subjct of a No drama 
because of their relations with a noble who had 
been banished from court to exile on the sea coast 
of Suma. Once more, asin the subject of Number 
78, the episode was but an episode for the lover, 
but, for the girl, the beginning and end of hap- 
piness, the warrant of immortality. Kiyonaga 
has done the same scene again in a pillar print. 
This print is from the same Series as Number 79. 
The subject has been reproduced in many places, 
among which it is best to choose the reproduction 
in color of the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 63, in 
spite of the fact that this was made from an im- 
pression that had been trimmed, and had faded 
to a lovely harmony of quiet tones, whereas the 
one exhibited is in the original condition. 

Size 15% X 10g. 


KIYONAGA 


A court lady of the long ago beside a stream. 
Kiyonaga did a number of prints of this type 


63 


85 


86 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


representing the old court costumes with their 
beautifully flowing lines. Most of these have 
two figures each; the one exhibited with its 
stately single figure is the finest that the compiler 
has seen. 

Print reproduced as frontispiece to Catalogue of 
“A Small Private Collection,’ Walpole Galleries, 
New York, June 14, 1920. 

Subject reproduced, Ficke Catalogue, No. 
2009. 

Size 15 X 10. 


KIYONAGA 

Diptych. A group of people visiting a Shinto 
shrine in winter. 

The figure of the man in black is particularly fine, 
the dark robes being set off against the snow. 
The left-hand sheet is reproduced in color in the 
Catalogue of the Exhibition held by the Japan 
Society of New York, 1911, No. 131; the right- 
hand sheet is reproduced in the Van Caneghem 
Catalogue, No. 45. 

Size 15¢ X 20. 


KIYONAGA 


Triptych. Women landing from a pleasure boat. 
The limited amount of space available permitted 
the exhibition of but two triptychs. This one, 
however, could not be omitted. It is a famous 
impression of a famous print. 


64 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, 
No. 1109. 
Size 15 X 30. 


SHUNCHO (worked Ca. 1780-1795) 


Shunch6d’s work was contemporary with the best 
of Kiyonaga’s. It is somewhat less masculine, 
less statuesque than that of his great rival; the 
figures are apt to have a softer, more gently 
feminine grace. Kiyonaga was the greater of the 
two, but Shuncho has a quality all his own, that 
gives him high place among the artists who work- 
ed in the closing decades of the 18th century. 


87 SHUNCHO 


Triptych. <A group of women of pleasure, whose 
names and addresses are given, in an iris garden. 
A lovely color scheme of quiet tones that became 
the vogue about 1790 and was much used by 
Shunch6, Shunman and Yeishi. 

It is said that in Japan demons cannot change 
easily the direction in which they are going, a 
fact that makes bridges of the kind shown in the 
print exceedingly useful; for if the devil is after 
you and you turn the corner abruptly he is likely 
to fall off into the water and be drowned. 

This triptych, unmounted at the time, was in 
the Yoshiwara fire in which so many fine prints 
were destroyed. 

Subject reproduced, Sotheby Catalogue of April 
17, 1918: (A Parisian Collector), No. 72. 


65 


88 


89 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Signed by Shunché and published by Izumiya. 
Size 15 X 30. 


SHUNCHO 


A youth walking with a woman in black and two 
attendants. 

Print reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 27. 
Signed by Shunchéd and published by Ejjudo. 
Size 15% X 10. 


SHUNCHO 


Mica ground. Bust portrait of a young girl 
named Hisa holding a round, red fan. Froma 
series of beautiful women compared to flowers. 
The iris is shown in a circle above. An exquisite 
piece of color and design; one of the loveliest 
prints in the exhibition. 

An impression, without signature or publisher’s 
seal or silver ground, is reproduced as an Uta- 
maro in the Sotheby Catalogue of June 23, 1913, 
No. 335. 

Signed by Shunch6 and published by Tsuruya. 
Size 15 X of. 


SHUNMAN (1757-1820) 


The work of Shunman is rather rare and is noted 
for its delicacy of treatment and color. 


90 SHUNMAN 


Two adjoining sheets, mounted as a diptych, of 
Shunman’s best known composition—a six-sheet 


66 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


set illustrating the six rivers named Tama of 
Japan. These six rivers of the same name are 
frequently illustrated or allegorized. Many po- 
ems were written about them, one being noted 
for the beauty of the flowers that grew on its 
banks, another for the sweetness of its water, 
and so forth. 

The subjects are reproduced with the sheet that 
comes next on the left in Succo’s “Toyokuni,” 
Vol. I, Plate 13. The one still farther to the left 
is shown in the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 127. 
Signed by Shunman and published by Fushi-Zen 
about 1790. 

Size, right-hand sheet, 142 x 93. 

Size, left-hand sheet, 15 x 9. 


UTAMARO (1753-1806) 


With Harunobu, Sharaku, Kiyonaga, and ranked 
by the French, who in such matters are good 
judges, as at least their equal stands Utamaro— 
the fourth great artist of the “ Brocade Pictures’”’; 
the lover of women, the painter, of the Fleurs 
du Mal. Unquestionably a great artist, he gave 
his art, he gave his life to the “ Flowers of Yedo,”’ 
as the courtesans in their gorgeous robes had 
come to be called; and as his power worked to- 
ward its premature decline he drew them with 
ever increasing exaggeration of figure and of pose, 
more and more like blooms of the jungle and 
morass, never such blossoms as filled the spring- 


67 


9 


— 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


time orchards of Harunobu or climb the wind- 
swept hillsides of Japan. Utamaro’s earlier work 
is in the manner of Kiyonaga and Shunchd, with 
figures of large proportions; the finest of his 
prints are of the middle period; toward the close 
of his career the exaggeration and the mannerisms 
become too pronounced. He was perhaps a 
great decadent; but on thinking of the decadence 
one must not forget the greatness. Few prints, 
if any, are more lovely than the silver ground 
half-figures of Utamaro’s middle years. 


UTAMARO 


Two geisha preparing for a fancy-dress proces- 
sion. A maid is helping one on with her outer 
robe while the other is applying rouge (benz) to 
her face before a mirror. From the so-called 
“Niwaka”’ series which was published before 1780. 
This is a fine impression of a famous subject 
and has the color perfectly preserved. It is 
exhibited, not so much to illustrate the very early, 
imitative manner of Utamaro, as to show the 
final technical perfection attained in the art of 
color-printing from wood-blocks. Utamaro was 
very fond of technical difficulties, tours de force 
of engraving and printing. In the printing of 
this sheet a large number of color-blocks were 
used and the perfection of the engraving as well 
as that of the printing is extraordinary. Notice 
the translucent scarf thrown over the painted 
screen, the edge of the material against the white 


68 


Q2 


93 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


neck of the standing geisha and the reflected hair 
of the other one. The print is too crowded to be 
one of Utamaro’s artistic triumphs, but the un- 
known cutter of the blocks and the printer de- 
serve to have their work remembered. 

Subject reproduced, from a trimmed, soiled and 
dull-colored copy, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. IV, No. 
18. The impression exhibited was No. 220 in 
the Appleton Sale at Sotheby’s in 1g1o. 

Signed Utamaro: 

Size 154 X 104. 


UTAMARO 


Bust portrait of Komurasaki of Tama-ya. Com- 
pare this print with Number 91 and note the 
elongation of the face—an indication that it was 
made toward the close of Utamaro’s career, 
though probably before 1800. 

Subject reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part 
lpWor3tl. 

Signed by Utamaro and published by Yam- 
aguchi. 

Size 154 X 10%. 


UTAMARO 


Blowing the Fire. The right hand and finer 
sheet of the “Kitchen”’ diptych. First state. 
The print was reissued later with a number of 
important changes, perhaps necessitated by the 
afterthought of a second sheet to go with it ina 
diptych. 

69 


94 


95 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Subject reproduced in the later form, V. I. 
Catalogue, Vol. IV, No. 90, and Hayashi Cata- 
logue, p. 188. The first state, with the publish- 
er’s mark on the right hand, or only sheet, does 
not appear to have been reproduced. 

Signed Utamaro and published by Uyemura. 
Size 15 X 10. 

It is difficult to date accurately prints by Uta- 
maro but this one and those that follow may be 
classed roughly as of the middle period. 


UTAMARO 


A geisha and her maid ina storm, carrying an 
umbrella, the box containing her samisen, and 
lantern, the rays of which light the scene. 

Print reproduced, Kinbei1 Murata Catalogue of 
October, 1913, No. 164. 

Subject reproduced, Catalogue of Exhibition 
help by Fine Art Society of London, 1910, No. 
128. 

Signed by Utamaro and published by Moriji. 
Size 15 X Of. 


UTAMARO 


Half-length figures of two women, each of whom 
holds a round fan. 

A proof without letters; for in other printings of 
this subject, as in the one reproduced by Mr. 
Ficke—“ Chats on Japanese Prints,”’ Plate 39— 
the upper right hand corner contains a small 
landscape and a cartouche which gives a series 


79 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


title—“ Beautiful Women Compared with the 53 
Stations of the Tokaido Road.” An explanation 
of this comparison could be given, but it would be 
tedious to read and tedious to write, for the Jap- 
anese inherited or adopted from their Chinese 
neighbors the habit of harping on certain sub- 
jects, the result being far-fetched comparisons, 
tedious to us. 

This print must have been drawn shortly before 
the middle period of Utamaro’s work had ended; 
“it is reproduced in “Asia” for September, 1923. 
Signed Utamaro. 

Size 152 x 103. 


96 UTAMARO 


Consolation. A young woman being comforted 
by her maid. This is the left-hand sheet of a 
diptych. A particularly beautiful piece of color 
and printing. 

Subject reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part I, 
No. 307. 

Signed Utamaro. Date about 1790. 

Size 15 X 10. 


97 UTAMARO 


An Elopement. Frequently miscalled “A Night 
Excursion.” This is one of Utamaro’s finest 
designs. It represents the elopement of Jihei, 
merchant, with the geisha Koharu, a story the 
details of which became famous through a play 
by Chikamatsu, originally written for mario- 


71 


98 


99 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


nettes. The elopement ended sadly, as such 
elopements were wont to end, in double suicide; 
for the lovers were faithful, each to the other, 
and preferred death to separation. 

Subject reproduced in color, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. 
IV, No. 140; where the series title is read: Mu- 
tual faith the source of love. 

Signed Utamaro. 

Size 15g X Oz. 


UTAMARO 


Yellow ground. A seated girl looking down at 
her beautiful white robe which is printed without 
the key-block black outline, the folds being in- 
dicated by gauffrage. Her face is outlined in pink. 
Another proof without letters; the usual impres- 
sions bear in the upper left-hand corner a self 
glorifying advertisement of Utamaro and all his 
works. 

Print reproduced, Catalogue of Schraubstadter 
Collection, No. 788. The usual state is repro- 
duced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. IV, No. 94 and 
Kurth, “Utamaro,” Plate 31. 

The print is signed but bears no publisher’s mark. 
Size 15 x 9. 


UTAMARO 


Mica ground. Bust portrait of three famous 
beauties of the day. The title has been written 
in, perhaps by some contemporary. This may 
be another proof before letters. 


72 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


The V. I. Catalogue, Vol. IV, No. 72, reproduces 
a print like the one exhibited, except for the car- 
touche in the corner and the names of the girls, - 
which must have been put in later and are lacking 
here. 

Signed by Utamaro and published by Tsutaya. 
Size 15% X 104. 


100 UTAMARO 


IO] 


Mica ground. Half-length portrait of a young 
woman of good society holding an open fan 
and open umbrella, under which in cartouches 
are the title of the series: “Ten young women 
judged by a study of their faces,’ and the cu- 
rious signature “Utamaro the Physiognomist, 
after mature consideration.” 

The print is in as perfect condition as though it 
had just come from the printer. 

Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of 
September, 1917; and “Album of Old Prints 
reproduced from the Collection of Ken-ichi 
Kawaura,” No. 186. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. IV, 
No. 32 

Publisher Tsutaya. 

Size 15 X 10%. 


UTAMARO 


Mica ground. Half-length portrait of the cour- 
tesan Hanaogi, whose address is given, holding 
a writing brush in one hand and a sheet of paper 


7 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


in the other. Above, in a second cartouche, is 
an erotic poem. 
The ob1, or sash, is printed in dull yellow, not in 
the green of some copies. 
Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of 
October, 1913, No. 123. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. IV, 
No. 62. 
Signed by Utamaro and published by Tsutaya. 
Size 14% X Of. 

102 UTAMARO 


Mica ground. The beautiful waitress, Okita, 
of the Naniwa tea-house, carrying a bowl of tea 
on a black lacquer stand. The poem above is 
signed Katsura Biju, and has a heading— 
“Written while resting in Naniwa-ya.” The 
text is a charming compliment to the lovely 
Okita, but the Japanese are as fond of unseason- 
able puns as the Dying Duke in “ Richard II,” 
and the number of them in this brief lyric would 
necessitate a commentary to explain a trans- 
lation. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. IV, 
No. 67. 

Signed by Utamaro and published by Tsutaya. 
Size 14% X Of. 


CHOKI (worked Ca. 1789-1800) 


Very little is known of this artist who appears 
to have worked only fora few brief years, but has 


74 


103 


104 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


left prints of surpassing grace—as beautiful as 
they are rare. Choki’s color schemes are par- 
ticularly distinctive; and his finest prints, such as 
the two-figure one exhibited, are filled with ro- 
mance. 


CHOKI 


Mica ground. Half-length portrait of Tsukasa 
Dayu, a lady of pleasure of Osaka. 

Print reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part I, 
No. 336. 

Signed by Choki and published by Tsutaya. 
Size 14% X 10. 


CHOKI 


Mica ground. Two young women in moonlight 
beside a stream. One is lighting her pipe. 
Print described, Haviland Catalogue, Part I, 
No. 337. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, 
No.112. 

Signed by Choki and published by Tsutaya. 
Size 15 X 10. 


YEISHI (1756-1829) 


Yeishi, who was one of the few print designers 
of samurai rank, gave up making prints about 
1799 and devoted the remaining thirty years of 
his life to the more respected occupation of paint- 
ing. Hewas fond of portraying the ladies of the 
upper classes and his long, slim figures, though 


7) 


105 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


drawn with some exaggeration and mannerism, 
are distinctive in their aristocratic grace; an 
effect which is helped by the quiet refinement of 
his favorite color scheme—black, gray, green, 
purple, yellow, in which the predominant blacks 
and grays are set off by the touches of brighter 
color. His earliest prints date from about 1788, 
so that the period of his production covers only 
eleven years. There is a delicacy of willowy 
loveliness about his work that makes the finest 
of his prints peculiarly prized. 


YEISHI 


The popular beauty Karakoto of Choji-ya walk- 
ing with her attendants under wistaria blos- 
soms. This is a sheet from a triptych. 

Signed by Yeishi and published by Izumiya. 
Size 15% X 10%. 


106 YEISHI 


A lady, her maid and a child on a balcony with 
yellow railings. Above them the lattice screen 
is rolled up. At their feet is an empty bird cage 
and all are looking out of the picture to the 
right as though the bird had just been released. 
Behind is a brook in which ducks are swimming 
and, back of that, other buildings of a palace or 
temple enclosure. Probably the left hand sheet 
of a lost triptych. 

Signed Yeishi. 

Size 15 X 10. 


70 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


107 YEISHI 


An episode in the life of Komachi. Snow Scene. 
Komachi, a famous ninth century poetess of 
great talent and unusual beauty, passed her 
youth in luxury and splendor, gratifying each 
extravagant fancy. “But age, apace, comes at 
last to all,’ and to her it came more quickly 
than to most, bringing with it poverty, squalor 
and hunger. Thestrange reversal of Komachi’s 
fortune from such heights of splendor to such 
depths of want, made her life a favorite sub- 
ject for the artist. and the moralist. Seven 
episodes in her career usually are depicted in 
a sort of analogue, no attempt being made to 
portray the costumes of the by-gone age, but 
the story being applied to some scornful con- 
temporary beauty. Yeishi’s Komachi Series is 
the best known and probably the finest of the 
printed ones, and two sheets of it are shown here. 
Print reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part I, 
No. 318. 

Signed Yeishi and published by Izumiya. 

Size 15 X 10. 


108 YEISHI 


The fifth episode in Komachi’s Life. “Praying 
for Rain.’”’ From the same series as the pre- 
ceding number, and with the same signature 
and publisher’s mark. This must be a very 
early impression from the blocks and is a par- 


77 


109 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


ticularly fine piece of engraving and printing. 
Subject reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part 
I, No. 319. 

Size 157°X 10%. 


YEISHI 


An episode from that chapter of the Genji 
Monogatari, or ‘Tales of Genji,’ which deals 
with the adventures of the amorous Prince dur- 
ing his exile at Suma. 

Yeishi designed a number of fine triptychs de- 
picting the famous Prince Genji, of whom more 
anon. 

The print exhibited is the left hand sheet from 
one of these triptychs, and is one of Yeishi’s 
best known and loveliest designs—the figure of 
the young lady in black having that inimitable 
refinement and charm which are characteristics 
of his finest work. 

Prince Genji is the hero of the first and best of 
Japanese novels, a book that was written about 
the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a court- 
lady whose diary has recently been published 
in English and shows, as does her novel, the 
extraordinary degree of culture, refinement and 
zesthetic appreciation which had been attained 
by the Japanese at that early date. The Prince 
himself, a natural son of the Emperor, and a 
gentleman as talented as he was charming, won 
the hearts of most men and—with the notable 
exception of his step-mother—of all women; 


78 


110 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


but notwithstanding his own impressionable 
nature he was difficult to win. There was, for 
example, one young lady for whose education 
and talents he had the highest admiration but 
for whom his friendship could not ripen into 
love because her nose turned red whenever the 
weather grew chilly. The “elegant’’ Genji was 
a very fastidious person, in spite of his propen- 
sity for “Bunberrying.” An excellent English 
translation of the first seventeen chapters of the 
novel was published in 1882 and gives a fascinat- 
ing picture of the old court life with its rigid 
decorum and over-developed zstheticism. 

The subject of the print exhibited has been re- 
produced several times; the best of these repro- 
ductions being that of the Appleton Catalogue 
(London 1910) Plate 23, though another, more 
easily accessible, is in Ficke’s “Chats on Japan- 
ese Prints,’”’ Plate 37. Mr. Ficke’s impression 
is entirely in black and gray without the purple 
of the one exhibited. 

Signed Yeishi. 

Size 154 X 10%. 


YEISHI 


The Geisha Itsutomi standing; her samisen is 
at her feet, the plectrum in her hand. Froma 
series of portraits of Geisha. This tall slender 
figure shows the mannerism into which Yeishi’s 
style developed, but is an exquisite thing that 
could not have been done by anyone but Yeishi. 


79 


Hii 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


The print looks as though it might once have had 
a silver background, though neither of the other 
impressions known to the writer—that repro- 
duced in the Catalogue of prints belonging to 
the Louvre, Vol. II, Plate 10, where it is credited 
by mistake to Yeisho, and that reproduced in 
the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 25—shows any 
more trace of silver than does the print ex- 
hibited. 

Signed by the artist and published by Iwa- 
toya. 

Size 14% x 8. 


YEISHI 


Silver ground. The courtesan Takigawa of 
Ogiya. From a Series of “Beauties of the Gay 
Quarters”? (Yoshiwara). The silver ground 
prints of this series are the finest as well as the 
rarest of all Yeishis; perhaps there is nothing 
more lovely in the whole range of the art. 
Subject reproduced in color, V. I. Catalogue, 
Vol. V, No. 26. A comparison will show that 
the print exhibited here is in much better con- 
dition, the delicate design in the white part of 
the kimono having faded from the Paris im- 
pression. Another impression, also reproduced 
in color, Binyon and Sexton, Plate XIII, is ex- 
ceedinely fine. 
Signed Yeishi Giga (designed for fun), and 
published by Iwatoya. 
Size 14% X 10. 

80 


112 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


YEISHIN 


Nothing has been ascertained regarding Yei- 
shin who is assumed to have been a pupil of 
Yeishi. His few known works are excessively 
rare. 


YEISHIN 


Silver ground. Half-length portrait of a young 
noble with a falcon on his wrist. His outer 
kimono is decorated with a design of eggplants 
and where his family mon, or crest, should be 
is Fuji in white reserve, thus uniting the three 
fortunate omens of Japanese superstition—the 
eggplant, the sacred mountain and the falcon. 
It is worthy of notice that while there are three 
reproductions of this subject, V. I. Catalogue, 
Vol. V, No. 62; Hayashi Catalogue, p. 228, where 
the numbers and names are transposed through 
a printer’s error, and Sotheby Sale of June 5, 
1914, No. 63; all of these lack the silver ground, 
though that of the print exhibited certainly is 
old. The slight pink flush about the temple 
was part of the original printing but was printed 
very lightly and has almost faded out with 
time. 

Signed Choyensai Yeishin. 

Date about 1790. 

Size 15 X 10. 


SI 


113 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


GOKIO (worked Ca. 1790-1800) 


Not much more is known of Gokio than of 
Yeishin, except that his work is not quite as rare 
and that he signed a number of prints “ Yeishi’s 
pupil Gokio.”” He is thought to have died very 
young. 


GOKIO 


The courtesan Makinoya of Matsukaneya, with 
her attendants, passing in front of one of the 
Yoshiwara houses with its green blinds. The 
color scheme of predominant gray with black, 
ereen, lavender and yellow is characteristic of 
Yeishi; but the print, though unsigned, is at- 
tributed with some confidence to Gokio whose 
signed work it resembles even more than it does 
that of his teacher. 

Subject reproduced, Basil Stewart, “Subjects 
Portrayed in Japanese Color Prints,’ Plate 2, 
No. 2. 

Date about 1790, probably just after Gokio 
ceased to sign as a pupil; or it may be part of a 
triptych one sheet of which was signed. 

Size 15% X 105. 


HOSODA YEIRI (worked Ca. 1790-1800) 


Little or nothing is known about Yeiri. His 
prints are as rare as those of Yeishin, with 
whom and with Gokio it is probable that he 


82 


114 


JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


studied under Yeishi; but in any case he is not 
to be confounded with Rekisentei Yeiri, or the 
so-called Yeiri 2nd, both of whom were artists of 
far less power than he. The fame of our Yeiri 
rests chiefly on the two or three astonishing por- 
traits by him that have survived: one of these 
is exhibited. 


HOSODA YEIRI 


Mica ground over black. Portrait of the novel- 
ist Santo Kydden, who in his earlier years was 
the painter and print designer Kitao Masanobu 
(see note on Number 74), and who in his youth 
made the pictures for a volume that is consid- 
ered one of the handsomest illustrated books of 
any nation. The poem on the fan is signed 
Santo Kydden. 

From a series depicting the celebrities of the 
various districts of Yedo. 

Print reproduced, “Asia,’’ October, 1923. 
Subject reproduced, Haviland Catalogue of June, 
1923, No. 341. Another of the set, and per- 
haps the only other that has survived, is repro- 
duced in color, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. V, No. 59. 
Signed Yeiri. Probable date about 1794. 

Size 152 X 10%. 


KUNIMASA (1773-1810) 
Kunimasa appears to havedesigned printsonly 


for about eight years (1795-1803). He is noted 
for his large heads of actors and was a pupil of 


83 


115 


116 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


Toyokuni, the last great artist of the figure 
prints, whose work will close the present exhibi- 
tion. 


KUNIMASA 


The Laughing Girl. Bust portrait of the actor 
Matsumoto Yonesabur6, as a woman. 
Subject reproduced, “Selected Actor Prints,” 
No. 263. 
Signed Kunimasa and published by Uyemura 
about 17096. 
Size 143 X of. 

TORIN 


The little that is known or surmised of Torin, 
as a designer of prints, may be stated briefly. 
He represented the third generation of a family 
of painters called Tsutsumi, who were followers 
of the school of Korin, and was considerably 
more distinguished than his predecessors. He 
is known chiefly as a painter of pictures for 
temples and is said to have taught Hokusai. 
There are a few Surimono signed Torin, and it is 
recorded that one sheet of an illustrated book 
published in 1798 bears his signature. The Hay- 
ashi Catalogue lists one print by him, and the 
compiler knows of no other, except the one 
exhibited. 


TORIN 


Bust portrait of Ogino Isaburo as Yuranosuke, 
the hero of Chushingura (see Numbers 39, 68 


84 





i211. 


NO. 


TOYOKUNI 


PLATE XAXVI 


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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


and 120), in gray and black against a black 
ground. The outlines and details of the head 
are printed without key-block and are indi- 
cated by gauffrage. 

This print was No. 129 in the London Loan 
Exhibition of 1915 and is illustrated in Plate 
XXXV of the Joly and Tomita Catalogue. 
The same subject, and from the same blocks, is 
reproduced in the second Manzi Catalogue, No. 
380, but that impression is signed “Toyokuni,”’ 
lacks the black ground, and was published by 
Marusei, with the name of the actor and the réle 
given in cartouches. Probably the original, by 
the obscure painter Torin, did not sell and the 
print was re-issued with the substituted signa- 
ture of the immensely popular Toyokuni whose 
work it does not resemble. 

Signed Kawa Torin. 

Publishers Tsutaya and Uemura. 

Size 154 X 10%. 


TOYOKUNI (1769-1825) 


Toyokuni I, the last great artist of the figure 
prints, hastened and survived the death of the 
art. In his later years, yielding to the enor- 
mous demand for his work, he produced a great 
number of designs which were mediocre in them- 
selves and were printed, because of the lowered 
standard of public taste and the carelessness of 
the overworked artist, in crude colors. After 


85 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


him came the deluge of imitators and pupils and 
adopters of his name, the ocean of whose works 
is supposed by the uninitiated to represent the 
color-printing of Japan. Fortunately, at the very 
moment when the last good figure prints were 
being made, the art itself came to new birth in 
the landscapes of Hokusai and Hiroshige. 

In his earlier work, which shows a wide range of 
subject, Toyokuni is well able to rank with the 
best of his contemporaries. He drew many 
lovely portraits of women and scenes of the 
passing world; but for the purposes of this 
exhibition, with the limited space available, it 
seemed wiser to represent Toyokuni more ade- 
quately in one phase alone of his work, and for 
this purpose his standing figures of actors have 
been chosen, the selection being made chiefly 
from the best known and finest series—“Por- 
traits of Actors on the Stage.” 


117 TOYOKUNI 


The standing figure of an actor whose green 
outer robe is decorated in yellow with a design of 
conventionalized cherry-blossoms—the mon, or 
crest, of Michizane, a statesman and poet of the 
ninth century, who is famous in song and story. 
There were many plays about him. (See note 
on Number 21, and under Grolier Club: Cata- 
logue of Landscape Prints, Number 8.) 

Signed Toyokuni and published by Izumiya. 
Size 15 X 10. 


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TOYOKUNI 


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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


118 TOYOKUNI 


119 


120 


The actor Bando Mitsugor6 as a young Samurai, 
stepping forward with right leg bared. 

Print reproduced, “Asia,’’ October, 1923. 
Signed Toyokuni and published by Izumiya. 
Size 14% X Of. 


The remaining seven prints are from Toyoku- 
ni’s finest series, “Portraits of Actors on the 
Stage,”” or Yakusha Butai no Sugata-ye. All 
are signed and have the usual publishers’ marks 
and cartouches bearing the titles. They were 
published about 1795. 


TOYOKUNI 


The 3rd Sawamura Sojur6d (Kinokuntya), as the 
Daimyo of Sendai. He carries a fan and a 
straw shade hat. 
Subject reproduced in color, V. I. Catalogue, 
Vol. VI, No. 29. 
Size 124 x 103. 


TOYOKUNI 


Mica ground. The same actor as Yuranosuke 
(See Numbers 68 and 116.) 

Yuranosuke was accustomed to delude the spies 
of Moronao by pretending intoxication. In this 
print he is said to be depicted with his clothes 
on backward; but even though all Japanese 
actors are more or less double-jointed, and saké 


87 


12] 


122 


THE GROLIER CLUB 


is a powerful stimulant, it is difficult to see how 
anyone could have gotten his head, feet and 
hand into the relative positions shown. There 
is some mystery about this print. The kimono 
of the actor bears the usual Sojurd mon (com- 
pare Numbers 57, 58); the mon on the outer 
robe, which appears to be falling off him, is that 
used to indicate Yuranosuke, the hero of “ Chu- 
shingura,” in which so many actors have been 
depicted. 

Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, 
No. 30. 

Size 142 X Of. 


TOYOKUNI 


The 3rd Segawa Kikunoj6 (Hamamuraya) as 
a woman. Compare this print with the next. 
Subject reproduced, No. 4, in the “Journal of 
the Ukiyo-ye Society of Japan,” Vol. II, No. 1, 
November, 1922. 

Size 152 x 103. (Plate XXVI). 


TOYOKUNI 


The same actor, apparently in the same part 
but differently posed, with different sweep of 
the draperies and with the black obi, or sash 
tied behind instead of in front as it was in No. 
121. 
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. VI, 
No. 37. 
Size 14% X 10%. 

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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS 


123 TOYOKUNI 


124 


125 


Matsumoto Koshir6 as a man of rank. 

Subject reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 
653. 

Size 152 x 10%. 


TOYOKUNI 


Mica ground. Bando Mitsugoré drawing his 
sword. 

Subject reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue 
of October, 1919, No. 82; and “ Journal of the 
Ukiyo-ye Society of Japan,’ November, 1922. 
No. 7. 

Size 142 x 10. (Plate XXVII). 


TOYOKUNI 


The 3rd Segawa Kikunoj6 as a dancer with an 
open fan in her right hand. (See note on Num- 
ber 16). 

Size 144 x 10. (Plate XXVIII). 


89 





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